Eudora Welty- American Author Challenge

^“I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.” ― E.W.

"Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001). Born in born in Jackson, Mississippi. She is an American author of short stories and novels about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards including the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum."



**This is part of our American Author Challenge 2014. This author will be read in May. The general discussion thread can be found right here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/162960

^ I did not know this but she was also a well-regarded photographer. This is "Child on Porch", Hinds County, Mississippi, 1936.

I started The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. This is all of her published short fiction, plus a few unpublished ones and it clocks in at 600 pages. I will be dipping in to it off an on until I finish, even if it takes me longer than a month. I think that is the best way to approach it. The few stories I have read so far, are very good, with an interesting range of subject matter.

If you would rather sample her work, you might try the Optimist's Daughter, which is a short novel and one I have not read.

I will be trying The Optimist's Daughter - 600 pages is too much for me!

I have both The Ponder Heart and The Optimist's Daughter on my shelves, so I will be reading one of those. I also have The Collected Stories but won't be attempting that one this month!

I'm planning to try The Ponder Heart. Our library also has a children's book she wrote called The Shoe Bird that I might have to try!

I was going to do The Collected Stories but 600 pages is far too much for me, especially if I don't even know if I'll like the author!

I'll probably go with The Optimist's Daughter as well.

>2 msf59: That photo has been used as the cover of at least two books I've read, The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips, and Downhome, An Anthology of Southern Women Writers.

Welty was also a prize-winning gardener. See One Writer's Garden

I intend to read Delta Wedding for AAC in May.

^This is another one of her striking photographs.

In regards to The Collected Stories, this volume contains 4 different collections: A Curtain of Green, The Wide Net, The Golden Apples, and The Bride of the Innisfallen. If you could find them individually, it might be easier to handle.

Linda- That is interesting about that photograph. It did look familiar to me too.

I'll probably go with The Optimist's Daughter.

Now y'all don't forget about that poor little McRaven child amid all those noisy Fairchild cousins! Delta Wedding is a lovely book, her first novel, and not perfect but so deeply, beautifully felt and experienced...well!

>1 msf59: (Pssst. "This author will be read in April." The pitfalls of cut-and-paste.)

I will also be reading The Collected Stories. I will slowly make my way through them but will consider my challenge complete when I have finished one of the collections.

>112 laytonwoman3rd:- Thanks! That is exactly what happened. Thank heavens for cut & paste but you can get lazy. LOL.

Roberta is joining me, Hooray!

Oh, good idea, Roberta! I think I will follow your lead!

I've changed my mind (due to RD's help) and will be reading The Bride of the Innisfallen.

Also influenced by Richard, I may follow Morphy's lead and read that collection, which is part of The Collected Stories...

Mark, I had no idea that Eudora Welty was also well-known as a photographer…and a very good one at that. I'm glad you mentioned that the Collected Stories are compilations of four books. I think I'll read A Curtain of Green as I have that one on the iPad and have already read the first few stories in it. Plus, I like starting at the beginning of an author's career!

>15 Crazymamie:- I think Roberta was following my lead, (I think so anyway) but I don't want to split hairs. LOL!

Donna- I did not know that either. If you have a chance check out more of her work.

I will follow Roberta, who is following Mark's lead...

>19 msf59: Yes Mark! Of course. :P

>20 Crazymamie: We will follow our leader.

ETA: I have been so looking forward to this month! I have never read any of her works but I am really itching to.

Touche, Roberta! LOL. Okay, I'll let you take full credit and I will kick back in defeat.

Honestly, I think that is the only way to approach The Collected Stories.

>22 msf59: I didn't mean it was my idea Mark, just that you were so quick to point out it was yours. LOL! ;-)

It made me laugh and think of my Devilles.

Our library has Losing Battles, and the reviews I've read make it sound interesting. I may try that one.

I got you now, Roberta! You are funny!

I am hoping to join in this month and since I have The Collected Stories, I will follow Mamie, who is following Roberta, who is following Mark. We're getting quite the conga line going!

Yah, a conga line!

^ROFL!!

This is the most fun group of folks on the internet!

Hey! I'm no fun. *crosses her arms and pouts*

I refuse to be fun! *stomps her foot*

Too late, Morphy! You're already fun!

*snaps her fingers* Rats.

I'll be reading The Optimist's Daughter, and trying to come close to being as fun as Morphy.

>34 jnwelch: Good luck with that....

Yeah, the odds seem awfully slim, don't they, Richard? *hangs head and retires to the un-fun people's corner"

Come sit next to me. Lots of room.

Well, we can have some very merry un-fun together, then. That ain't so bad.

*clink*

>39 richardderus: :-)

I have a paperback copy of Thirteen Stories, which I would be happy to mail to anyone in the U.S., if you're interested and need something for the Welty read. Claim it here and PM me your address.

Hi Mark and all! I'm trying Losing Battles in May, and might think about The Optimist's Daughter if I can find it. I think it's on the nook. The short story omnibus is one of my favorite go-tos when I just need a little something.

Heeeeey! Why am I sitting over here all by myself! *snivels*

*stomps over to Joe and RD and plops herself down next to them*

The Bride of Innisfallen is in transit at the library.

>43 Morphidae:- Poor baby! I'll sit with you awhile...Hush little baby, don't you cry...

I have borrowed The Optimist's Daughter from the library and will be starting that maybe tonight.....maybe tomorrow...

"A whole tree of lightning stood in the sky. She kept looking out the window, suffused with the warmth from the fire and with the pity and beauty and power of her death. The thunder rolled."

- A Piece of News

I have read 11 of the stories in A Curtain of Green, which is the first collection in Collected Stories. There are a few that are stand-outs and others that are fair to good. I do like her range and she is not afraid to get dark or creepy.

>46 msf59: And all of that was her FIRST collection! Stories she wrote in the 1930s! Wait until the 1940s and 1950s stuff in The Golden Apples and Bride of the Innisfallen. She only got better.

Thanks, Richard! That is very encouraging and will help me keep on track.

One possibility:
The Robber Bridegroom

Lol'ing at the literal p#$$ing contest, Ro & Mark! Kidding!!

I love you guys! This is the BEST group of folks anywhere!

I'm taking the easy way out. I have a used copy of A Curtain of Green and will read that this month.

I did finish A Curtain of Green. The first story collection in Welty's Collected Stories. This one was released in 1941. It was good to very good. She can get very dark and murderous. I will move on to the next collection, (or at least start it) when I finish my M & M book.

Anyone else cracking Welty yet?

I've cracked The Optimist's Daughter, and it's good so far. You want to throttle Judge McKelva's new and younger wife Fay, who's petulant and self-centered and just plain annoying, and you wonder how long his patient and put-upon daughter Laura can put up with her. Very good dialogue.

I have EW's Collected Stories and another one or two of her books. I read her when I was much younger and enjoyed her so I anticipate the same reaction now. I am reading several books now, but nothing with purpose. I need to focus on something and focus on getting my reviews written. I am so tired today that I keep falling asleep. Last night was another sleepless night until I went to sleep at around 5:30 and got up to bring Darla to the vet for a raging skin condition. Vet really doesn't know what to call it but she is getting baths with special soap and antibiotics and ear care for her pink floppy ears! Anyway, I love the quote at the top of this thread. Recently, I have been thinking quite a bit about what a visceral experience reading is for me. I just started the new Greg Iles book Natchez Burning and I opened it, stroked the pages, sniffed the paper, hefted its weight in my hands. Then I started another book, a collection of detective stories Great Detectives by David McCullough, another doorstopper that I love to hold and page through. I am tending towards going from one book to another lately, out of boredom, I guess.

I managed to check out my book. I won't have a lot of time for reading this week as I have a conference all day and meetings most evenings, but hopefully I'll get to it soon. It should read quickly as it is short and seemed to have quite a few line drawings.

I checked mine out today, too.

I'm #1 on the hold list, and have been for at least a week. I hope the person who has it checked out returns it soon!

>53 jnwelch: Word! I want to smack Fay so hard! But I do love the descriptions of the extended Southern family. I am from the frozen north but I recognize these characters for sure!!

I got The Bride of the Innisfallen from the library on Saturday. I should get to it next week.

"Whatever happened, happened in extraordinary times, in a season of dreams, and in Natchez it was the bitterest winter of them all."

-the opening line of "First Love", from The Wide Net

Morphy- I have The Bride of the Innisfallen in my Collected Works.

“Up home we loved a good storm coming, we’d fly outdoors and run up and down to meet it,” her mother used to say. “We children would run as fast as we could go along the top of that mountain when the wind was blowing, holding our arms right open. The wilder it blew the better we liked it.”

“At their very feet had been the river. The boat came breasting out of the mist, and in they stepped. All new things in life were meant to come like that.”

“You know, sir, this operation is not, in any hands, a hundred percent predictable?"
"Well, I'm an optimist."
"I didn't know there were any more such animals," said Dr. Courtland.
"Never think you've seen the last of anything,”

All from The Optimist's Daughter

The book had some beautiful writing, and I liked it, but I wasn't wowed by it. Kinda surprised it won the Pulitzer that year, as it's pretty low key.

>52 msf59:: Mark, I need to get back to A Curtain of Green. I was so disappointed with the Indian Maiden story that I set it aside for awhile. I loved the stories leading up to that one so I'll shake it off and move on remembering that these were her first stories.

I have a copy of The Optimist's Daughter on the shelves somewhere but couldn't pull it immediately to hand when required so I found The Ponder Heart in the bookstores here. Read it on the flight from Jakarta today and found it absurd and engaging; an unlikely combination for an unlikely story.

It looks like I am reading A Curtain of Green. A few stories in, so far so good.

^ I'll join you in this, Rhonda.

I'm just started reading The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty. Actually, I've only read the first story. But so far, so good!

>66 rosalita: Julia, I am exactly the same. Finally started The Collected Stores of Eudora Welty and have got the first one under my belt.

I've just gotten The Golden Apples from my library, and I'll start it soon!

Karen O.

Ok, confession time. I don't think Eudora Welty is an author for me. I can see that she is an excellent writer but the 6 or so short stories that I have read so far have done nothing for me. I will continue on with a couple more, want to give her a fair shot, but I have a feeling that I will not be finishing The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty.

>69 DeltaQueen50: Giving a new author a fair shot is part of what this American Author Challenge is about, I think, Judy. If she's not for you, then she's not. And you can move on to someone else who is, without guilt.

>69 DeltaQueen50: I can understand your sentiments. "Why I Lived at the P.O." is probably her most hyped short story. I can read her, but she's never been nor will she ever be a favorite author in spite of my being a native of the state of Mississippi where, of course, she is highly regarded. I do like some of the mostly photographic works where she has written narrative much better than her short stories and novels/novellas. I think Country Churchyards is one of these. I'm also thinking there is one about the Great Depression era that I've seen.

>69 DeltaQueen50: I'm struggling with her first collection. It's very inconsistent. Richard says she only got better so I may give The Bride of the Innisfallen a crack.

I am sorry the Welty isn't cutting it for a few of you. A Curtain of Green is uneven but the Wide Net is stronger and more assured. I only have 2 or 3 stories left in that one.
I don't think anyone has been blow away by any of her full length work either. Hey, at least we are giving her a shot. If she doesn't quite make the grade, it will be a void that will quickly be filled.

The only book our library has by Welty is Losing Battles, and I'm just not getting into it. This month is too busy to spend with 400+ pages of a book I don't like.

There are stories by Welty in a couple of anthologies the library has. I may just read what's there and call it a month, and otherwise use May to substitute one of the other American Authors the challenge didn't include, but who are sitting on my TBR shelf begging to be read. Possibilities include Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls, Thomas Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel, or a classic American mystery writer to fit the MysteryCAT in the Category Challenge -- I've got novels by Mickey Spillane and Dashiell Hammett.

Well this may be a good time to pipe up and say I finished Delta Wedding and found it to be...meh. I just never got engaged with the zillions of characters (part of the problem), or the slow moving narrative. Just as the title suggests, members of the family gather to get ready for a family wedding. Unfortunately, nothing happens of any import at all and yet I kept waiting for something, anything to happen.

I read The Optimist's Daughter years ago and had the same problem getting engaged with the characters so I think this may be the end of the road for me even though I have her enormous The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty sitting on my shelf.

I had read a collection of Welty's short stories when I was in college and wasn't a big fan.

But I really enjoyed The Optimist's Daughter.

It was really personal, since I buried my father last fall.

But ... the feeling of desperately trying to change the fate of an ill parent; then afterwards being surrounded by family and friends like sinking into a feather comforter and wanting to stay there forever; the searching for the past, only to find that when you've found that bit, it's already been changed and moved on.

Yup, loved it. Even shed a few tears.

I've had a hold on The Optimist's Daughter for 3 weeks and just found out that it is in transit to my local library, so I should be starting it soon!

I finished The Ponder Heart. It took me back in time. While I wasn't around in the 1950s, I was around in that part of Mississippi in the 1960s. I think I had a greater appreciation for what I read based on life experience. Welty will never be a personal favorite even though she is highly regarded in her native state. I think the favorite Welty things I have read are some of the books of a more photographic nature such as Country Churchyards where she has provided the accompanying text.

I have put The Collected Stores of Eudora Welty back on the shelf, she just isn't holding my interest right now, perhaps another time. Of the 8 stories I did read, I liked "Why I Live at the P.O." best, I thought she showed a wicked sense of humor in that one.

>79 DeltaQueen50: The p.o. one is her best IMHO.

As no one took me up on the offer of Thirteen Stories, it's been sitting on my desk at work. Today I re-read "A Worn Path" at lunchtime. I feel it is one of her best--a little gem of character and place, with a heart-wrenching ending. I agree that "Why I Live at the P.O." is wickedly funny, and I love that one.

The Optimist's Daughter ***

My first Eudora Welty! Interesting enough to read in one sitting.

I stumbled upon a great used copy of The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty but I don't have time to read all that 622 pages has to offer. So, thanks to the readers who have recommended what they feel to be the more commendable selections. I've chosen to read worn path, the optimists daughter, why I live at the P.O..

I finished Curtain of Green and Other Stories.

She has a wonderful way with words, and a wonderfully cynical view of the world. Here’s a passage:

“Old Mr. Marblehall never did anything, never got married until he was sixty. You can see him our taking a walk. Watch and you’ll see how preciously old people come to think they are made—the way they walk, like conspirators, bent over a little, filled with protection. They stand long on the corners but more impatiently than anyone, as if they expect traffic to take notice of them, rear up the horses and throw on the brakes, so they can go where they want to go. That’s Mr. Marble hall. “

Some of the stories were weaker than others, it might have been better to start with some of Welty’s later works. Also, I found that the book was really reminiscent of a time and place that has fortunately passed. As a result, some of the stories felt pretty distant from my current life.

>76 streamsong: What lovely comments on The Optimist's Daughter! I had a hard time connecting with it myself, but am glad it meant a lot to you.

>76 streamsong:,>82 LoisB:, >84 banjo123: I'm happy to see a little love for Miss Eudora here, as she just isn't resonating with a lot of people in the group. In any collection of short fiction, there are always a few clunkers that don't work for me even when I generally enjoy the author. And Welty isn't a novelist, in the sense that her longer works are less cohesive than her best short fiction, but something happens to me when I read her. It's like visiting with a slightly dotty, but perfectly brilliant old aunt (and of course I know she wasn't anything like "old" when she wrote a lot of her stuff---she was about my age when she wrote The Optimist's Daughter, for instance). Or like swinging in a hammock on a drowsy summer afternoon, with all your perceptions just a little bit distorted, and sleep buzzing around you like a bumblebee. Indescribably pleasant, but so easily disrupted. By which I guess I mean you can think too hard about her stories, looking for the "point", and thereby miss what's wonderful about them. I love her, I think, and that's why I enjoy reading her. I'm surprised no one picked up her One Writer's Beginnings, a short memoir that I read before I knew any of her work at all. Someone gave it to me, and in my failing memory it was my grandmother, but that cannot be true, since it was published several years after she died. (I think my grandmother and Ms. Welty would have been fine friends if they had lived in the same small town.) I am currently in the middle of Delta Wedding, and although it took some settling in, I am now enjoying it very much. Yesterday I received a CD of Ms. Welty reading 3 of her own short stories, and I will listen to that to close out the month.

I finished Why I live at the P. O. yesterday and I really enjoyed it. Faulkneresque with better grammar.

Next I'll give A Worn Path a try. Unfortunately my collection does not include Optimist's Daughter so my third will be The Whistle.

A virtual tour of Eudora Welty's home is fun.

>85 Cobscook: Thanks for the nice complement. Sometimes a book hits your life at a given moment and really resonates.

I'm glad to see both you and laytonwoman3rd enjoying Welty, too. I was beginning to feel like the odd one out in a life raft. Not that anyone here would throw me overboard to the sharks, but it's nice to have a bit of company.

I'm still going with the Collected Stories. I find reading just one a day helps me absorb and keep them separated in my mind. I'm still very early in the book and trying to keep in mind that these ones I'm reading now are some of her very first works. As such, I'm not sure they quite hold together but you can certainly see the promise in her descriptive language and characters.

Just looked at the virtual tour of Welty's house in >88 laytonwoman3rd:. Books piled everywhere, book cases and lovely places to sit and read and a well stocked liquor refreshment cabinet. I think I would have enjoyed visiting her!

>91 streamsong: Yes, that's it, exactly!

Here's a link to an insightful piece about Welty that appeared in The New Yorker last year. I highly recommend reading her potent short (very short) story "Where is the Voice Coming From?". I don't know if it appears in the popular collections...it is definitely in the Library of America volume Eudora Welty: Stories, Essays and Memoir. The more I read her, and read about her, the more I want to know her better.

I read and liked The Ponder Heart, though it wasn't life-changing or anything. I think her writing very much reflects the tradition of oral storytelling that has such a long history, especially in the South. I wonder if she is falling out of favor because we are moving ever farther away from that kind of tradition, and so her writing feels "off" to us as modern readers somehow?

>92 laytonwoman3rd: thanks for the link! I read the essay and the short story--very interesting.

I'm having a very difficult time with Delta Wedding. I just can't get INTO it... it makes me feel less guilty reading Bonnie's comments in >75 brenzi:. At first, I was just desperately trying to make it to 50 pages so I could Pearl rule it... I'm to page 80 now but don't think I'm going to last much longer.

I just started Delta Wedding and am also struggling a bit but I'm hoping to give it another go at the weekend when I will hopefully be less tired! Helpful to know others have been struggling too though.

I tried with The Bride of Innisfallen. I really did. I started three different stories and couldn't finish any of them. I sort of skimmed most of The Burning. I'd read a page. And read it again. And again. And I still couldn't understand it. She seems to write for the sake of the words instead of for comprehension or the story - if there even is a story there. And that's the opposite of what I read for.

I really wanted to complete a book for each author but there is no way I'm going to read any more Welty. Sorry, Richard!

Not too much Welty love going on here, huh? ;>)

I've already read and enjoyed many of her short stories. I wasn't overjoyed with Delta Wedding, although it had its own rewards; the plot was thin to the point of invisibility.

Currently reading Losing Battles. This was a life-changer when I first read it, as my introduction to Southern weirdness; it prepared me for Faulkner and McCullers, so that I wasn't completely gob-smacked when I encountered them. Now I find it familiar and soothing since I've lived in the south for many years. The only drawback is the fifty million characters; it's hard to keep track. It's still fun to read with her wicked sense of humor so smoothly worked in that you miss it completely if you're not paying attention.

Just this reader's thoughts, of course.

Welty seems to be giving people more trouble than Faulkner, even! I just finished Delta Wedding. It is certainly dense with characters (and that same-name-repeated-through-the-generations thing), as well as layer upon layer of subtext. Plot, not so much, I agree. It will take some thinking to write my review, but I am in awe of this lady and how sneaky she was when planting her barbs. Those of you who are still working on it, keep your eyes out for Pinchy's brief appearances. There's a lot of meaning in them.

"Under the shaggy bluff the bottomlands lay in a river of golden haze. The road dropped like a waterfall from the ridge to the town at its foot and came to a grassy end there. It was spring. One slowly moving figure that was a man with a fishing pole passed like a dreamer through the empty street and on through the trackless haze toward the river."

-"At the Landing"

^This was the last story in The Wide Net and it was a beauty. I think this collection was better, stronger and more assured, than A Curtain of Green, even though there were still a few cast-offs. I think I will read the other two collections, at another time.

I can't say I was disappointed in Welty, she certainly was talented and some of those stories really sing but I think we set our bar very high, in regards to revered American authors and I think she fell just a bit shy.

>99 laytonwoman3rd:- I am very glad she worked for you, as well as she did, Linda. I will still give her novels a try, one of these days.

Now, the sights are on Mr. Vonnegut...

Admitting defeat with Delta Wedding. I'm not a quitter by nature, but I'm just not enjoying it and it has become more of a chore than anything. I gave her a fair shot, I think!

After 10 days of traveling in Spain (Madrid and Barcelona), with my son and daughter-in-law, I have to drop a number of my possible reads this month.

I had much less time to read, although I did read one whole book on the way back home. Our flight from Barcelona to Frankfurt, 4.5 hour layover and flight from Frankfurt to Toronto took almost 15 hours and I read almost all of that time. I don't think I have ever read a complete book in one day!

I will not get to reading The Robber Bridegroom as planned BUT, yesterday I listened to an audio of Welty's short story "Why I Live at the P. O." performed by Stockard Channing, which was hilarious!!

The story was on an audio book American Classics: Amy Tan that I just happened to notice at the library. The book is a "compilation of classic tales by great American writers performed by terrific actors, with a lineup including Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award winners, and PEN Award winners".

Even though so many of you seem to find Welty's work less than satisfactory, after hearing Stockard Channing's performance, I will try and read the book sometime in the future.

>102 ccookie: I didn't know there was audio by Stockard Channing. I'm going to look for that. I've just listened to three stories read by Miss Welty herself..."Why I Live at the PO", "Powerhouse", and "Petrified Man". Her voice is so lovely to listen to that sometimes the words themselves get lost in the music. I was already very familiar with the PO story, so I got that one pretty well, and in "Petrified Man" she slowed down a little, and I was getting more used to listening so I enjoyed it the most. It was also hilarious. "Powerhouse" is another matter...I couldn't absorb it with one hearing, and I will read it in print now, then listen again. These three stories offer a good illlustration of the author's incredible range, both in writing and in performance. I wish she had recorded a good deal more of her own work. And I wish I had known about her recording of "Petrified Man" at the beginning of this challenge, as I would have recommended it to everyone as a perfect way to approach Welty. I think once you've heard her voice her own characters, some of the impediment to reading her falls away. I will also mention again that her non-fiction is well worth reading. Two essays in particular, "Must the Novelist Crusade?" and "Place in Fiction" are very insightful, and would be helpful companions to Delta Wedding, for instance.

>62 Donna828: The Indian Maiden story put me off my feed also. I finished A Curtain of Green a week ago and neglected to check in here. This is what I wrote for my short 3 star review:

"I believe this is Eudora Welty's first collection of short stories, first published in 1941. Quite a few stories here with a very wide range. I like the writing a lot. There are many great observations within these stories. Some were rather bizarre, and there seems an excess of simple-minded folk. The bizarre strangeness effect was rather cumulative as I read through these stories. Every one seems to have a touch of strange about it. A few of the stories were to me rather uninteresting things in and of themselves, but there were sparkling bits of language and settings within them nonetheless.

The culture depicted within these pages is utterly alien to me, a California boy. I'm removed from both time and place. That must be at least partly a fault of my own (lack of) experiences. Some of the situations are universal of course, although not the presentation here, and I was just repeatedly struck by the oddness of some of this.

So the two-bit summary: Great writing, strange quirky stories. Worth a read but not really my cuppa tea. "

What I don't really emphasize in my mini review above is how stunning some of the writing is. There are sentences and paragraphs all over the place that are simply beautiful uses of language. It is the utter strangeness of some of the stories, characters who I don't even remotely recognize or understand and situations that keeps me from loving this. In this collection "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden" probably hit me as the most bizarre. From the hype I expected to be wowed by "The P.O." story but wasn't. I did appreciate "The Worn Path" and even though it is was pretty noirish and odd I found myself thinking back on "The Hitch-hikers" as a remarkable bit of storytelling.

-Ron

This month isn't over yet...and I will continue to plug for Miss Eudora. Here, read the letter of application she wrote to the New Yorker when she was just 23 years old. And they didn't hire her!

I'm such a Weltyite that it makes me sad so many don't see what I see...the lush rich full-fat real-butter 120-proof language telling such come-again? angled stories...but that's why the reading world is interesting.

After all, muttering mobs form and torches blaze when I mention how much I loathe Dickens.

>106 richardderus: YES. Well, as the lady said herself " I read simply voraciously, and can drum up an opinion afterwards." Sounds like everyone here, dunnit?

>107 laytonwoman3rd: Sorta-kinda, almost.

>106 richardderus: *muttering and lighting a torch*

Linda, and others ... do you enjoy the weirdness of the stories or is it that the beauty of the writing (which I think is undeniable) overpowers that? I'll be reading more of Welty. I had only read a handful of her stories in the past.

ETA: part of the "fun" in reading some of these stories is me saying to myself .. "is she suggesting what I think she is suggesting? .. when was this written? whoa"

>110 RBeffa: Both! It's seldom that I encounter someone whose storytelling eye is so far off the plumb line of reality's-warts to fantastical-nonsense, and whose sentences often make me purse my lips and croon in a comical-looking apelike display of happy.

I have to admit that the truly weird ones are not my favorites. But I, too, enjoy that quirky, odd-ball way of looking at things, and characters who would be called "peculiar" if we weren't so blessedly uneasy about saying such things. It's wonderful to see them through Welty's sharp eyes. I mean, I've known a great many peculiar people. I'm related to some that I'd rather were confined to the pages of a novel, fer cryin' out loud. And then, the writing is just sublime.

My experience so far has been that the good stories like "Why I Live at the P.O.", "The Petrified Man" and "The Whistle" are simply sublime, and the others are pretty bad/not to my taste at all ("Keela the Outcast Indian Maiden"). It's a variation on "when she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid."

I made it through "Why I Live at the P.O." It was... readable. And that's all I have to say. :D

Some Eudora Welty thoughts from my thread:

Book No. 39: A Curtain of Green by Eudora Welty. 3.2 stars.

I slowly made my way through this first collection of short stories from an esteemed southern writer. Set in a different place and time, I could not relate to the characters and events. However, the writing was stellar and so I kept plodding along. One of my favorite stories, "The Key," about a mentally challenged couple stranded in a bus station was followed by my least favorite, "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden," which bordered on the grotesque. Most of the stories contained good characterization and an excellent sense of place. But Welty's way with words provided the impetus to keep reading.

I have her complete collection of stories on Kindle and I will probably continue very s-l-o-w-l-y to read them. They were strangely compelling to me because of the types of people and places she writes about, and I am a lover of beautiful language:

"But happiness, Albert knew, is something that appears to you suddenly, that is meant for you, a thing which you reach for and pick up and hide at your breast, a shiny thing that reminds you of something alive and leaping." ~ From "The Key")

Welty's stories may not be shiny, but they are alive! I hope they continue to grow on me.

I read The Optimist's Daughter and although I did not connect with it! I still liked it. Or I guess I did not dislike it. I am glad that I am doing this challenge and becoming exposed to authors I would not normally pick up.

I'm just wondering how the readers of Welty (lovers or not) react to the stories of Flannery O'Connor. If Welty's characters seem odd, try out a few of O'Connor's strange and wonderful tales.

My Eudora Welty read was The Optimist's Daughter. Agree with you, jayde1599. I can see why it won the Pulitzer, thought it was well done, but I didn't connect either. This is a great challenge; I'm enjoying dipping into authors I wouldn't otherwise have picked up.

Here's my last word on Eudora Welty for the challenge. A link to my review of Delta Wedding.

I've knocked another review of the Shameful Neglect list: Delta Wedding, a novel by Eudora Welty. I do so love to hate Dabney Fairchild, that cut-rate Scarlett O'Hara, that youthful Narcissa Benbow wannabe.

The review's in my thread...post #54.

I got to thinkin' about some of the unreviewed books I need to get to, and thinkin' about today's meme-prompt: Beautiful title...hmmm...well, nothing beats The Optimist's Daughter for euphony and for sheer exuberant positivity of the image evoked.

I got the review up in the Orphans thread...post #65.