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The Optimist's Daughter
This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
180 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Eudora Welty
226 books915 followersEudora Alice Welty was an award-winning American author who wrote short stories and novels about the American South. Her book The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America.
Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived a significant portion of her life in the city's Belhaven neighborhood, where her home has been preserved. She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women (now called Mississippi University for Women), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia Business School. While at Columbia University, where she was the captain of the women's polo team, Welty was a regular at Romany Marie's café in 1930.
During the 1930s, Welty worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, a job that sent her all over the state of Mississippi photographing people from all economic and social classes. Collections of her photographs are One Time, One Place and Photographs.
Welty's true love was literature, not photography, and she soon devoted her energy to writing fiction. Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book immediately established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the legendary and oft-anthologized stories "Why I Live at the P.O.," "Petrified Man," and "A Worn Path." Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
In 1992, Welty was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story, and was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. In her later life, she lived near Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, where, despite her fame, she was still a common sight among the people of her hometown.
Eudora Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 92, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson.
Excerpted and adopted from Wikipedia.
Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived a significant portion of her life in the city's Belhaven neighborhood, where her home has been preserved. She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women (now called Mississippi University for Women), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia Business School. While at Columbia University, where she was the captain of the women's polo team, Welty was a regular at Romany Marie's café in 1930.
During the 1930s, Welty worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, a job that sent her all over the state of Mississippi photographing people from all economic and social classes. Collections of her photographs are One Time, One Place and Photographs.
Welty's true love was literature, not photography, and she soon devoted her energy to writing fiction. Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book immediately established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the legendary and oft-anthologized stories "Why I Live at the P.O.," "Petrified Man," and "A Worn Path." Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
In 1992, Welty was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story, and was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. In her later life, she lived near Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, where, despite her fame, she was still a common sight among the people of her hometown.
Eudora Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 92, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson.
Excerpted and adopted from Wikipedia.
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April 24, 2017
Eudora Welty is considered one of the great American writers of the 20th century. With a life spanning the majority of the century, she wrote a plethora of stories and novels. Her stellar work personifying the southern genre of writing won multiple awards over the span of her lifetime. None of the novels, however, garnered as much praise as The Optimist's Daughter which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 when Welty was 64 years old. A crowning jewel for a lifetime achievement of writing, The Optimist's Daughter is a look into both southern customs and an in depth look at people and their relationships.
Laurel McKelvy Hand has returned to the south from Chicago when she hears that her father Judge Clinton McKelvy has suffered a scratched eye and is need of surgery. An only child to the widower Judge, Laurel feels it is her duty to preside over her father at his time of need. Yet, the scratched eye turns out to be more complicated than a minor surgery and McKelvy's new wife Fay does not see predicaments in the same light as Laurel. Judge McKelvy succumbs from the surgery, and tension brews between the two women over their means of honoring him.
Welty moves the story from a New Orleans hospital to small town Mount Scalus , Mississippi. Having lived in Jackson for her entire life, Welty could have been writing about her own town, and she describes this town in an intimate manner. Even though Laurel has lived away and in the north, the entire town knows her and shares her innermost secrets. While she is still in a way grieving for both her mother and husband, her friends and neighbors come out in droves to assist her in mourning her father, a revered man in Mount Scalus.
While Laurel still contemplates what might have been had either her mother or husband lived, Fay, who is younger than Laurel, is a wreck. An outsider who wants all attention for herself and receives no sympathy from old Mount Scalus, Welty has created an ideal antagonist in Fay. As a reader I groaned as she stated how miserable she was all the while wondering if she only married Judge McKelvy, a man twice her age, for his money. Even though Mount Scalus prays that Fay leaves town, Welty has created in her a character who embodies life moving on and changing how things are done in a small town way of life.
This is the first of Welty's novels that I have read and her simple sentences reeled me in as they read like a story being told on a porch on a lazy afternoon. With a large cast of characters and basic plot, at only 180 pages in length, The Optimist's Daughter was an easy read for me despite the tension existing throughout the novel. I desired to find out the denouement between the two women, rooting that Laurel emerged as the victor between the two, hoping that Fay would leave Mount Scalus alone.
Having read my share of Pulitzers, The Optimist's Daughter holds its own yet does not quite rank as high as some of the other novels I have read. A testament to Welty's illustrious career, The Optimist's Daughter is a short novel that intimately defines life and relationships in a southern small town. While not the best of award winners, Welty's novel is a look into a slice of Americana that was an interesting read that I rate 3.75 stars.
Laurel McKelvy Hand has returned to the south from Chicago when she hears that her father Judge Clinton McKelvy has suffered a scratched eye and is need of surgery. An only child to the widower Judge, Laurel feels it is her duty to preside over her father at his time of need. Yet, the scratched eye turns out to be more complicated than a minor surgery and McKelvy's new wife Fay does not see predicaments in the same light as Laurel. Judge McKelvy succumbs from the surgery, and tension brews between the two women over their means of honoring him.
Welty moves the story from a New Orleans hospital to small town Mount Scalus , Mississippi. Having lived in Jackson for her entire life, Welty could have been writing about her own town, and she describes this town in an intimate manner. Even though Laurel has lived away and in the north, the entire town knows her and shares her innermost secrets. While she is still in a way grieving for both her mother and husband, her friends and neighbors come out in droves to assist her in mourning her father, a revered man in Mount Scalus.
While Laurel still contemplates what might have been had either her mother or husband lived, Fay, who is younger than Laurel, is a wreck. An outsider who wants all attention for herself and receives no sympathy from old Mount Scalus, Welty has created an ideal antagonist in Fay. As a reader I groaned as she stated how miserable she was all the while wondering if she only married Judge McKelvy, a man twice her age, for his money. Even though Mount Scalus prays that Fay leaves town, Welty has created in her a character who embodies life moving on and changing how things are done in a small town way of life.
This is the first of Welty's novels that I have read and her simple sentences reeled me in as they read like a story being told on a porch on a lazy afternoon. With a large cast of characters and basic plot, at only 180 pages in length, The Optimist's Daughter was an easy read for me despite the tension existing throughout the novel. I desired to find out the denouement between the two women, rooting that Laurel emerged as the victor between the two, hoping that Fay would leave Mount Scalus alone.
Having read my share of Pulitzers, The Optimist's Daughter holds its own yet does not quite rank as high as some of the other novels I have read. A testament to Welty's illustrious career, The Optimist's Daughter is a short novel that intimately defines life and relationships in a southern small town. While not the best of award winners, Welty's novel is a look into a slice of Americana that was an interesting read that I rate 3.75 stars.
September 26, 2018
"Memory lived not in initial possession but in the freed hands, pardoned and freed, and in the heart that can empty but fill again, in the patterns restored by dreams."
Eudora Welty
Eudora Welty won the Pulitzer Prize for this book in 1973. It was written much later than the bulk of the rest of her work. She had, as it turned out, one more little gem left in her pen. I've read some other reviews and realize that the book was confusing to some people even to the point that they gave up relatively early in the book. I understand because you see we are outsiders in this book. We are missing the beginning and really a lot of the beginning. Conversations are flying around our heads that we have no basis of knowledge to fully understand. The people in this book have known each other their entire lives and their conversations flitter from decade to decade without pausing to fill in the gaps for those of us just visiting.
It was hard to have sympathy for the character Fay McKelva, but it was only after I had finished the book and had pondered on my feelings for a while that I realized how crazy that town was driving this little girl from Madrid, Texas. Fay wasn't bright enough or patient enough to just listen, nod, and accumulate knowledge. I always think of myself in these situations as the Antonio Banderas character from the superb movie The thirteenth Warrior. He is an Arab who is placed with twelve Norse warriors on a quest and he doesn't know a single word of their language, but he keeps listening.
So the key to this book was to keep listening.
Antonio Banderas as Ahmad ibn Fadlan
Laurel Hand comes back home to Mississippi to be a support for her father, Judge McKelva, during a minor surgery to correct a torn retina in his eye. His wife, Fay McKelva, younger than his daughter is also there to offer support, but really seems to be more of a hindrance than a help to the recover of her 72 year old husband.
Unexpectedly the Judge takes a turn for the worse and Laurel feels the need to stay at the hospital hoping he will start to get better. I've spent time at a hospital waiting for people to die and the hospital becomes this condensed warped existence that I'll let Laurel explain.
"A strange milky radiance shone in a hospital corridor at night, like moonlight on some deserted street. The whitened floor, the whitened wall and ceiling, were set with narrow bands of black receding into the distance, along which the spaced-out doors, graduated from large to small, were all closed. But of course the last door on the right of the corridor, the one standing partway open as usual, was still her father's."
She reads to her father, trying to find the right book that will help him return to health. One of her fondest memories as a child was listening to her father and mother read to one another.
"When Laurel was a child, in this room and in this bed where she lay now, she closed her eyes like this and the rhythmic, nighttime sound of the two beloved reading voices came rising in turn up the stairs every night to reach her. She could hardly fall asleep, she tried to keep awake, for pleasure. She cared for her own books, but she cared more for theirs, which meant their voices. In the lateness of the night, their two voices reading to each other where she could hear them, never letting a silence divide or interrupt them, combined into one unceasing voice and wrapped her around as she listened, as still as if she were asleep. She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams."
Judge McKelva dies and then the struggle between the daughter that has known him her entire life, and the new wife that has only known him a short time becomes painful. The wife makes all the arraignments.
In the words of Fay:
"How could the biggest fool think I was going to bury my husband with his old wife? He's going in the new part."
I took that slap to the face right along with Laurel. I felt the heat rise in my neck and the need to say "you have no right", but the fact of the matter is Fay does have the right.
Laurel has lost her mother, her husband, and her father. It made me think about the people I have lost. I lost a sister, who died on my birthday. She only breathed for three days. I lost a saintly grandmother who died in such horrific pain that I have never forgiven the religion that she spent so much time nurturing. I've lost friends who died way too young, Chris Blue at 31, Mike Achilles at 55, and David Thompson at 38. My father's twin sister, Shirley, who was my favorite aunt died at 46. I went to see her near the end. She was a husk of her former beauty. A woman that knew I was coming and wanted lipstick for her lips. She always wanted to look her best even after cancer had shrunk her features tight against her skull and had taken her lustrous dark brown hair. She told me I looked like a movie star and how proud she was of me. I will never forget her bony fingers in my hand as fragile as glass. To say that this book got under my skin might be an understatement.
Laurel remembers her husband Phillip and what she remembers is his hands. I can identify with his double-jointed issues see picture below. Phillip had large, good hands, and extraordinary thumbs--double-jointed where they left the palms, nearly at right angles; their long, blunt tips curved strongly back. When she watched his right hand go about its work, it looked to her like the Hand of his name.
One of my Freaky Double-Jointed Thumbs
This can be a confusing book, but my advice is to hang in there. Let the language become more familiar as the book advances. We don't know these people. We are strangers in a small town in Mississippi. We need time to catch up with what we need to know to even support our end of a conversation. This book may very well haunt you. A day later after finishing it I'm still thinking about it and having rolling tides of emotions. I'm mad at Judge McKelva for giving up too easily. Laurel has lost too much too soon in life and she really needed him to come back. He needed to let her read him back to health.
The people are telling stories about Judge McKelva at the viewing and Laurel is amazed at how little they seemed to understand about his real accomplishments. "And everybody had already forgotten about that part of his life, his work, his drudgery. This town deserved him no more than Fay deserved him, she thought, her finger in the dust on what he'd written." It is scary to think about being so misunderstood after we are gone. We can only hope our children understand and can tell the stories the right way to our grandchildren.
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August 24, 2023
Otra agridulce relectura. “La hija del optimista” es una obra más que notable y yo, pobre de mí, no supe verlo en su día. Pensando en ello e intentando disculparme, o disculpar a aquel que fui, llegué a la conclusión de que mi pasado descontento con la obra pudiera deberse al cruel ensañamiento de la autora con Fay, la segunda esposa del juez McKelva, mucho más joven que él, prácticamente de la misma edad que su hija Laurel.
Welty, ya sexagenaria, nos escribe en la novela sobre el fin de una forma de entender la vida y de conducirse por ella que corre paralelo al relato de la muerte del juez, tras una intervención ocular y en claro contraste con la fiesta de carnaval de Nueva Orleans que se está celebrando en el exterior del hospital, representante de una anquilosada aristocracia sureña y de unos valores en buena parte caducos. Laurel, la hija del optimista juez, será la que centre el foco del narrador de esta historia que enfrenta un pasado luminoso, no exento de sombras, con el futuro que representa Fay y su familia.
“El pasado no es cosa mía. Yo pertenezco al futuro, ¿no lo sabías?”Seguramente, la primera vez que la leí me molestó esa nostalgia por una clase social en la que no estaba mal visto que el prestigioso médico azotara el culo de su enfermera o se hablara siempre de una forma condescendiente de los negros o que el chismorreo centrara sus conversaciones, enfrentado al retrato inclemente de una familia pobre y sin educación, de aquellos “que nunca comprenden lo que les ocurre”. Y ahora, en esta época Trumpista, los sentimientos que me despiertan estos representantes de la llamada basura blanca que son Fay y su familia no son tan piadosos como los que pude tener en aquellos tiempos y comprendo perfectamente el desprecio que cabe sentir por estas personas orgullosas de su falta de educación y de su ignorancia (“no sé qué significa esa palabra y me alegro de no saberlo”), de sus modales groseros y de su vulgaridad, de su falta de sensibilidad… no todo pueden ser las circunstancias.
“Fay no poseía en su interior la fuerza de la pasión o de la imaginación, y no tenía modo de apreciarla o de obtenerla de los demás. Los demás, con sus vidas, seguramente también eran invisibles para ella. Para encontrarlos, ella sólo podía arremeter contra ellos armada con sus pequeños puños y dar manotazos al azar, o escupir con aquella pequeña boca suya. No podía luchar contra una persona sensible del mismo modo que jamás podría amarla.”Pero Fay y todo lo que ella supone no solo ha enturbiado el presente de Laurel y ennegrecido el futuro, Fay también ha trastocado la memoria y la idea que tenía de su padre, alguien que quiso relacionarse y hasta casarse con alguien como Fay, sustituta de su amada madre Becky, tan distinta. Un aspecto de su padre que siempre tuvo que estar ahí y del que ella quizá no fuera tan ignorante.
“El misterio, pensó Laurel, no radica en lo poco que conocemos a quienes nos rodean, sino quizás en lo mucho que los conocemos realmente”.A la muerte del juez, Fay se quedará con la casa familiar y con todo lo que ella contiene, tanto y tantos objetos que estarán siempre asociados en su recuerdo a los momentos felices pasados con sus padres y que Fay despreciará o destruirá y que ahora están contaminados por esa relación que tuvo con su padre. Quiz��s es por eso que en su último día en la casa, Laurel se adelanta a su madrastra y quema muchos de los objetos relacionados con su madre, sabiendo que no son las cosas materiales lo importante, que siempre le quedará el recuerdo de esa vida con ellos, aunque el encuentro con el mundo de Fay los haya modificado, y los valores que la sustentaron, no siempre los más correctos.
“Ahora, el pasado ya no puede ayudarme ni hacerme daño, no más que mi padre en su ataúd. El pasado es como él, insensible, y jamás podrá despertar. Es el recuerdo lo que actúa como un sonámbulo. Regresará con sus heridas abiertas desde cualquier rincón del mundo… exigiéndonos esas lágrimas a las que tienen derecho. El recuerdo no será nunca insensible. Al recuerdo sí se le pueden infringir heridas, una y otra vez. En ello puede residir su victoria final. pero del mismo modo que el recuerdo es vulnerable en el presente, también vive en nosotros, y mientras vive, y mientras tengamos fuerzas, podremos honrarlo y darle el trato que merece.”
February 28, 2017
Eudora Welty (1909-2001). She was 92 when she died. A life that spanned almost the entirety of the 20th century. A lifetime of writing achievement crowned by her masterpiece, The Optimist's Daughter. She was 64 when it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1973.
Many readers overlook Welty or disregard her work because it is "stuffed" into a certain genre, Southern Literature, which limits her exposure. But life is life and people are people, and Welty had the innate skill to bring the complexities and nuances of everyday life to her characters in a way that very few writers are able to do. And that is what is most evident in The Optimist's Daughter. In a relatively short novel, she compresses the lives of four people on to the pages so skillfully, so completely, that you come to know them and understand them.
Many readers overlook Welty or disregard her work because it is "stuffed" into a certain genre, Southern Literature, which limits her exposure. But life is life and people are people, and Welty had the innate skill to bring the complexities and nuances of everyday life to her characters in a way that very few writers are able to do. And that is what is most evident in The Optimist's Daughter. In a relatively short novel, she compresses the lives of four people on to the pages so skillfully, so completely, that you come to know them and understand them.
August 4, 2012
The Optimist's Daughter: Eudora Welty's Celebration of Life and Memory
It is bittersweet to write about this little gem. It comes with no frills, no literary allusions, no photographs.
My mother died on February 1, 2012. She gave me this book for Christmas, 1973. I was twenty-one, had never lost a loved one, nor even a close friend. I had nothing ahead of me but the future. Memory was reserved for college examinations. And mine was very good.
But over the passage of time, as we all have, or all will, we will view memory with different eyes. There will be less plates to place on the dinner table. There will be fewer birthdays to celebrate, a package or two less to wrap at Christmas. I attend more funerals these days.
Welty portrays the classic Southern funeral with perfection. Everything is there. The exaggerated and loud voices nervously chatting up the good qualities of the deceased. The tables heavily laden with hams, vegetables, casseroles. The odor of flowers. The subsequent emptiness, and the loneliness.
I know Laurel. We could walk hand in hand. I imagine we could talk for hours about love and the loss of it. Some may find her too prim, too reserved. But perhaps tears are better shed in privacy, as opposed to Fay's widow's breakdown, perfectly timed and very public, though I suppose there is a place for that, if the feelings are true.
Welty puts this story together in layer upon layer as carefully as my grandmother put together a coconut cake at Christmas. Laurel's past is slowly disclosed. The meaning of the group of bride's maids becomes clear only well into the story. Laurel is a war widow. Her husband shook hands with a Kamikaze in the Pacific. She still dreams of him. She has remained a widow by choice.
But now she has suffered loss for the third time. Her mother, her husband, her father. But she was an optimist's daughter.
Her father, Judge McKelva, had weathered the death of Becky, Laurel's mother. In his seventies, he married Fay, younger than his daughter, and he weathered that marriage, though Fay did not have the intelligence of his wife or daughter, nor have his place in society. She was young and someone to protect, a factor never to be underestimated in any man. Perhaps he did not see her love of the material, her coarseness, her shallowness, or vulgarity. But he moved forward where Laurel did not.
I can't put my hands on that Christmas gift from years ago. It is packed somewhere among the many books boxed away along with photograph albums of three generations. But I will find it. Each day I look at all those boxes, and with few exceptions I say, "No, not today." But I will find it. And when I do, I will read that gift from a Christmas so long ago.
As Miss Welty said,
For my Mother, Ann Sullivan, August 27, 1935-February 1, 2012
"But the guilt of outliving those you love is justly to be borne, she thought. Outliving is something we do to them. The fantasies of dying could be no stranger than the fantasies of living. Surviving is perhaps the strangest fantasy of them all."--Laurel McKelva Hand
It is bittersweet to write about this little gem. It comes with no frills, no literary allusions, no photographs.
My mother died on February 1, 2012. She gave me this book for Christmas, 1973. I was twenty-one, had never lost a loved one, nor even a close friend. I had nothing ahead of me but the future. Memory was reserved for college examinations. And mine was very good.
But over the passage of time, as we all have, or all will, we will view memory with different eyes. There will be less plates to place on the dinner table. There will be fewer birthdays to celebrate, a package or two less to wrap at Christmas. I attend more funerals these days.
Welty portrays the classic Southern funeral with perfection. Everything is there. The exaggerated and loud voices nervously chatting up the good qualities of the deceased. The tables heavily laden with hams, vegetables, casseroles. The odor of flowers. The subsequent emptiness, and the loneliness.
I know Laurel. We could walk hand in hand. I imagine we could talk for hours about love and the loss of it. Some may find her too prim, too reserved. But perhaps tears are better shed in privacy, as opposed to Fay's widow's breakdown, perfectly timed and very public, though I suppose there is a place for that, if the feelings are true.
Welty puts this story together in layer upon layer as carefully as my grandmother put together a coconut cake at Christmas. Laurel's past is slowly disclosed. The meaning of the group of bride's maids becomes clear only well into the story. Laurel is a war widow. Her husband shook hands with a Kamikaze in the Pacific. She still dreams of him. She has remained a widow by choice.
But now she has suffered loss for the third time. Her mother, her husband, her father. But she was an optimist's daughter.
Her father, Judge McKelva, had weathered the death of Becky, Laurel's mother. In his seventies, he married Fay, younger than his daughter, and he weathered that marriage, though Fay did not have the intelligence of his wife or daughter, nor have his place in society. She was young and someone to protect, a factor never to be underestimated in any man. Perhaps he did not see her love of the material, her coarseness, her shallowness, or vulgarity. But he moved forward where Laurel did not.
I can't put my hands on that Christmas gift from years ago. It is packed somewhere among the many books boxed away along with photograph albums of three generations. But I will find it. Each day I look at all those boxes, and with few exceptions I say, "No, not today." But I will find it. And when I do, I will read that gift from a Christmas so long ago.
As Miss Welty said,
"It is memory that is the somnambulist. It will come back in its wounds from across the world...calling us by our names and demanding its rightful tears. It will never be impervious. The memory can hurt, time and again--but in that may lie its final mercy. As long as it's vulnerable to the living moment, it lives for us, and while it lives, and while we are able, we can give it up its due."
For my Mother, Ann Sullivan, August 27, 1935-February 1, 2012
May 25, 2024
I expect a tour de force compared to Faulkner, but I was disappointed that the beginning will have been laborious even if the book finishes brilliantly. We follow the fate of a young woman living in Chicago, whose father, a notable from a small town in the South, has just died suddenly. He had recently remarried a woman much younger than himself. Reunited, the two women cordially hate each other, and the widow surprises the whole town when her family (which, according to her words, did not exist) arrives at the funeral. It is a novel that explains the South's bourgeoisie, codes, and traditions well, but something is missing, so as with Faulkner, my mind is totally under the spell.
April 3, 2013
It's not easy becoming an orphan at any age. Suddenly, your safety net is gone. You are adrift. And no one will ever call you "son" or "daughter" again.
Just like me, Laurel was a middle-aged woman when she was orphaned. Unlike me, Laurel had to cope not only with the death of her father, but the persistent and annoying presence of her "evil" new stepmother, Fay.
Just how awful is Fay? As pesky as a gnat and as prone to tantrums as a spoiled child, she is undoubtedly irritating. Nothing passes without Fay having to comment on it, and as Welty explains - Her flattery and disparagement sounded just alike. When her husband, Judge McKelva is diagnosed with a slipped retina, she declares, "I don't see why this had to happen to me." Annoying as Fay is, she's a great character, and the book could not exist without her. Her embarrassment over the arrival of her white trash relatives from Texas, the relatives she claimed were dead, was almost touching.
Why on earth did Judge Mac marry this woman? Well, he was an optimist...
But, Laurel, of course, carries the soul of the book in her sensible heart. Her return home for the funeral leaves her steeped in memories of her beloved mother. She seems astonishingly accepting of the fact that the horrid Fay has been left the house and all of its possessions. I doubt that I would remain as calm under such circumstances.
Laurel is certainly not as attached to "things" as I am. As she unsentimentally dusts her father's library for the last time, my heart was breaking. I wanted her to pack the whole thing up and take it with her. But Laurel is wise. She realizes that in the end, we are left with nothing but fond memories of things that used to be, and people that have passed through our lives, touching us in ways that will never be forgotten.
Who needs things when you have a memory like this one:
When Laurel was a child, in this room and in this bed where she lay now, she closed her eyes like this and the rhythmic, nighttime sound of the two beloved reading voices came rising in turn up the stairs, every night to reach her. She could hardly fall asleep, she tried to keep awake, for pleasure. She cared for her own books, but she cared more for theirs, which meant their voices. In the lateness of the night, their two voices reading to each other where she could hear them, never letting a silence divide or interrupt them, combined into one unceasing voice and wrapped her around as she listened, as still as if she were asleep. She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams.
Just like me, Laurel was a middle-aged woman when she was orphaned. Unlike me, Laurel had to cope not only with the death of her father, but the persistent and annoying presence of her "evil" new stepmother, Fay.
Just how awful is Fay? As pesky as a gnat and as prone to tantrums as a spoiled child, she is undoubtedly irritating. Nothing passes without Fay having to comment on it, and as Welty explains - Her flattery and disparagement sounded just alike. When her husband, Judge McKelva is diagnosed with a slipped retina, she declares, "I don't see why this had to happen to me." Annoying as Fay is, she's a great character, and the book could not exist without her. Her embarrassment over the arrival of her white trash relatives from Texas, the relatives she claimed were dead, was almost touching.
Why on earth did Judge Mac marry this woman? Well, he was an optimist...
But, Laurel, of course, carries the soul of the book in her sensible heart. Her return home for the funeral leaves her steeped in memories of her beloved mother. She seems astonishingly accepting of the fact that the horrid Fay has been left the house and all of its possessions. I doubt that I would remain as calm under such circumstances.
Laurel is certainly not as attached to "things" as I am. As she unsentimentally dusts her father's library for the last time, my heart was breaking. I wanted her to pack the whole thing up and take it with her. But Laurel is wise. She realizes that in the end, we are left with nothing but fond memories of things that used to be, and people that have passed through our lives, touching us in ways that will never be forgotten.
Who needs things when you have a memory like this one:
When Laurel was a child, in this room and in this bed where she lay now, she closed her eyes like this and the rhythmic, nighttime sound of the two beloved reading voices came rising in turn up the stairs, every night to reach her. She could hardly fall asleep, she tried to keep awake, for pleasure. She cared for her own books, but she cared more for theirs, which meant their voices. In the lateness of the night, their two voices reading to each other where she could hear them, never letting a silence divide or interrupt them, combined into one unceasing voice and wrapped her around as she listened, as still as if she were asleep. She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams.
December 15, 2022
First half of this was quite fun, with the 71 year old revered retired Judge’s 42 year old daughter Laurel and his also-around-42-year old new wife Fay building up to a colossal knock-down dragout donnybrook as they tend the old fart who has been put into the hospital with a torn retina. After the operation the doctor says the Judge has to lie still on his back for six weeks or so and he is the most compliant of patients. This finally gets on Fay’s nerves to the point where she freaks out and tries to drag him out of bed – all of this was entertaining and I was looking forward to what happened after the funeral but, a few flounces and low-class insults sprayed around like insecticide later, Fay vamooses for many pages and the reader descends into the maundering griefstricken memories and psychological self-maulings of daughter Laurel. It has to be admitted that these long-ass indirect interior monologues are a stone drag, and the brief viperish reappearance of Fay is way too little way too late.
A very uncomfortable and inescapable theme throughout this novel is class. Laurel is all refinement and gracious manners and devoted filial love (along with also being a stoical young widow and a painter); Fay is an uneducated grasping vulgar gold-digger with no heart who bitterly resents having to spend time with her inert husband in the hospital and later finds the only use she has for his funeral is that it provides the perfect opportunity for her to do some hyperventilating operatic weeping and wailing over the open coffin which is observed by all, thus concluding all duties to her late husband prior to taking over his mansion. Plus, her family is wheeled in for the funeral and they turn out to be practically hillbillies and subtly or not-so-subtly mocked at every turn.
In the tiresome last third Laurel has all the fine authentic deep feelings which it appears we are being led to admire, and Fay is brought back to demonstrate how appallingly nasty and grasping she is, and how noble Laurel is. It’s difficult to think that a Pulitzer prizewinner would be as crudely snobbish and cheaply insulting as I’m making out here, but I couldn’t read Fay’s character in any other way – she has absolutely no redeeming features.
Eudora Welty does have a fine turn of phrase, it is true, and here is my favourite sentence in the book :
As they proceeded there, black wings thudded in sudden unison, and a flock of birds flew up as they might from a ploughed field, still shaped like it, like an old map that still served new territory, and wrinkled away in the air.
A very uncomfortable and inescapable theme throughout this novel is class. Laurel is all refinement and gracious manners and devoted filial love (along with also being a stoical young widow and a painter); Fay is an uneducated grasping vulgar gold-digger with no heart who bitterly resents having to spend time with her inert husband in the hospital and later finds the only use she has for his funeral is that it provides the perfect opportunity for her to do some hyperventilating operatic weeping and wailing over the open coffin which is observed by all, thus concluding all duties to her late husband prior to taking over his mansion. Plus, her family is wheeled in for the funeral and they turn out to be practically hillbillies and subtly or not-so-subtly mocked at every turn.
In the tiresome last third Laurel has all the fine authentic deep feelings which it appears we are being led to admire, and Fay is brought back to demonstrate how appallingly nasty and grasping she is, and how noble Laurel is. It’s difficult to think that a Pulitzer prizewinner would be as crudely snobbish and cheaply insulting as I’m making out here, but I couldn’t read Fay’s character in any other way – she has absolutely no redeeming features.
Eudora Welty does have a fine turn of phrase, it is true, and here is my favourite sentence in the book :
As they proceeded there, black wings thudded in sudden unison, and a flock of birds flew up as they might from a ploughed field, still shaped like it, like an old map that still served new territory, and wrinkled away in the air.
October 5, 2021
Laurel Hand travels from her home in Chicago to New Orleans when her father, Judge McKelva has an an eye operation.
The judge's second (and much younger) wife, Fay also accompanies her husband from their home in Mississippi.
The judge languishes after the surgery, becomes withdrawn and silent, and eventually dies.
Through all this Laurel tries to support her father but Fay carries on and makes scene after scene - insisting that the judge recover - and probably hastening his demise.
After the judge's death the women return to Mt. Salus, Mississippi with his body, and friends and neighbors who've known the McKelva family for ages come around to express their condolences, help out, and so on.
Most people in the community dislike and resent Fay, who continues her histrionics until she goes off to visit relatives for a couple of days. Meanwhile Laurel remains in her childhood home for a weekend, visiting with friends and trying to come to terms with the deaths of several loved ones: her mother Becky some years ago, her husband Phil in the war, and her father.
I thought the story was a realistic portrayal of a close-knit community and the manner in which people react to the death of a beloved family member/ respected person in the community / friend, etc. No tremendous insights here but a number of interesting characters - Laurel, Fay, Becky, some of Laurel's friends and neighbors - made the book worth reading.
You can follow my reviews at http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com/
March 1, 2009
I must be missing something, as it's won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and has numerous sparkling reviews, but I did not enjoy this book at all. At only 180 pages, this book was still a struggle for me to get through. The narrative was both vague and tedious. The storyline seemed disjointed and at times defied belief. I failed to find the meaning in the blatantly meant-to-be-symbolic events, such as the home invasion by a chimney swift.
Additionally, I felt the characters grossly underdeveloped. Fay, the antagonist (who probably gets the most written attention), is portrayed stereotypically as the shallow, ignorant, and significantly younger second wife of an aging once-titan. Not much insight is given into her motivation, even with the introduction of her backwards family. I often wondered if the protagonist, Laurel, wasn't a bit slow given her absence of interaction with other characters. Other minor players seemed to be introduced and dismissed at will.
All-in-all, I was left dissatisfied and wanting after reading. Perhaps if there had been more character development, I would have become more involved and vested in the outcome. As it was, I was bored and disinterested by the confrontation at the end and simply wanted to be done with it.
Additionally, I felt the characters grossly underdeveloped. Fay, the antagonist (who probably gets the most written attention), is portrayed stereotypically as the shallow, ignorant, and significantly younger second wife of an aging once-titan. Not much insight is given into her motivation, even with the introduction of her backwards family. I often wondered if the protagonist, Laurel, wasn't a bit slow given her absence of interaction with other characters. Other minor players seemed to be introduced and dismissed at will.
All-in-all, I was left dissatisfied and wanting after reading. Perhaps if there had been more character development, I would have become more involved and vested in the outcome. As it was, I was bored and disinterested by the confrontation at the end and simply wanted to be done with it.
December 10, 2021
Todo el encanto del gótico sureño, más cerca del universo de 'Lo que el viento se llevó' que del sarcasmo de Faulkner, pero con elementos muy característicos de la novela y la cinematografía del género. Los paisajes del sur, las pequeñas poblaciones con sus familias principales que se relacionan entre sí mediante un elaborado protocolo y el intenso aroma de las flores que lo invade todo. Y la melancolía de un país que no llegó a ser.
Eudora Welty tiene un estilo amable, transparente, que hace muy fácil la lectura, pero al mismo tiempo perfila los personajes con mucha intensidad y nos sumerge en el ambiente peculiar de la pequeña ciudad de Mount Salus. Mississipi.
Acompañamos a Laurel, que viaja desde Chicago a Nueva Orleans para cuidar a su padre, el juez McKelva, que ha de someterse a una operación. A la cabecera de su cama se encuentra también Fay, su segunda esposa, más joven que Laurel y procedente de una familia de clase social inferior - lo que en el Sur se conoce como 'white trash'.
Aún le resultaba increíble a Laurel que su padre, rondando los setenta, hubiera permitido que una advenediza, una extraña, entrara así en su vida, y que se hubiera avenido a tolerar cosas semejantes.
El antagonismo soterrado entre las dos mujeres es una presencia constante en la narración, aunque Laurel rehuye el enfrentamiento y al volver a su ciudad natal de Mount Salus para el entierro, se refugia en los recuerdos del matrimonio feliz de sus padres:
'Los recuerdos vuelven como la primavera', pensó Laurel. Los recuerdos tenían las mismas características que la primavera. En algunos casos, era la madera más vieja la que florecía.
A altas horas de la noche, sus voces leyéndose mutuamente, en un lugar desde donde ella podía oírlas, sin que hubiera un silencio que los dividiera o los interrumpiera, se unían hasta convertirse en un susurro constante que envolvía a Laurel a medida que escuchaba, tan calladamente como si estuviera dormida.
La desaprobación a todo lo que la joven esposa representa se nos transmite sobre todo a través de los comentarios de los amigos y vecinos que aprecian a Laurel, y alcanza su máxima expresión cuando la familia de Fay se presenta en el funeral.
Ciertamente la autora presenta una sociedad fuertemente jerarquizada y no estoy segura de que la critique. Sus simpatías están desde luego con Laurel, cuyos pensamientos y evolución interior a raíz de los recuerdos que le trae su vuelta a Mount Salus ocupan la mayor parte de la narración. Quizá me ha faltado saber algo más de Fay; es un retrato un poco incompleto, tampoco se ensaña con ella, pero no la trata con el mismo interés que a Laurel. Creo que al principio esperaba más de la dinámica entre las dos mujeres y a partir de la mitad el relato se centra mayormente en Laurel. Pero en general es una obra llena de sensibilidad y que nos traslada al ambiente sureño con estupendos diálogos y una descripción magnífica de personas y situaciones.
Eudora Welty tiene un estilo amable, transparente, que hace muy fácil la lectura, pero al mismo tiempo perfila los personajes con mucha intensidad y nos sumerge en el ambiente peculiar de la pequeña ciudad de Mount Salus. Mississipi.
Acompañamos a Laurel, que viaja desde Chicago a Nueva Orleans para cuidar a su padre, el juez McKelva, que ha de someterse a una operación. A la cabecera de su cama se encuentra también Fay, su segunda esposa, más joven que Laurel y procedente de una familia de clase social inferior - lo que en el Sur se conoce como 'white trash'.
Aún le resultaba increíble a Laurel que su padre, rondando los setenta, hubiera permitido que una advenediza, una extraña, entrara así en su vida, y que se hubiera avenido a tolerar cosas semejantes.
El antagonismo soterrado entre las dos mujeres es una presencia constante en la narración, aunque Laurel rehuye el enfrentamiento y al volver a su ciudad natal de Mount Salus para el entierro, se refugia en los recuerdos del matrimonio feliz de sus padres:
'Los recuerdos vuelven como la primavera', pensó Laurel. Los recuerdos tenían las mismas características que la primavera. En algunos casos, era la madera más vieja la que florecía.
A altas horas de la noche, sus voces leyéndose mutuamente, en un lugar desde donde ella podía oírlas, sin que hubiera un silencio que los dividiera o los interrumpiera, se unían hasta convertirse en un susurro constante que envolvía a Laurel a medida que escuchaba, tan calladamente como si estuviera dormida.
La desaprobación a todo lo que la joven esposa representa se nos transmite sobre todo a través de los comentarios de los amigos y vecinos que aprecian a Laurel, y alcanza su máxima expresión cuando la familia de Fay se presenta en el funeral.
Ciertamente la autora presenta una sociedad fuertemente jerarquizada y no estoy segura de que la critique. Sus simpatías están desde luego con Laurel, cuyos pensamientos y evolución interior a raíz de los recuerdos que le trae su vuelta a Mount Salus ocupan la mayor parte de la narración. Quizá me ha faltado saber algo más de Fay; es un retrato un poco incompleto, tampoco se ensaña con ella, pero no la trata con el mismo interés que a Laurel. Creo que al principio esperaba más de la dinámica entre las dos mujeres y a partir de la mitad el relato se centra mayormente en Laurel. Pero en general es una obra llena de sensibilidad y que nos traslada al ambiente sureño con estupendos diálogos y una descripción magnífica de personas y situaciones.
April 26, 2013
While I do tend to take my sweet time moseying toward a review after finishing a book, stewing both over and in my thoughts for often days at a time before taking the perfectionist's route to laboring over my words (or slapping some observations together to see what sticks and hoping that no one points out the crooked seams or varicolored threads), trying to sort and figure out what I want to say about The Optimist's Daughter was an especially difficult task. It wasn't until Mark -- who is often exactly what I need to pry a sticky thought loose from the place where things elude elucidation (thanks, Mark!) -- left a comment on the in-progress version of this review that I saw where the difficulties lie. The problem was not, as I mistakenly believed at first, the unfortunate truth that it is mighty hard talking about a much-loved book beyond HOLY MOTHER OF BACONATOR, THIS BOOK ROCKED MY FACE OFF: It's that I've been trying to use my head to approach a book that I felt almost entirely in my heart. (And also that I suffer from a paralyzing fear of sounding corny in a public forum, which made the immediately preceding confession hard to even consider typing.)
So let me try to establish where I was emotionally during most of my time reading The Optimist's Daughter. I recently spent an evening with my little brother, his girlfriend and some other fine folks in celebration of my future sister-in-law turning 21 (as I spent my 21st birthday starting and finishing a 20-page final paper and then moving out of my dorm room for the summer, I embraced the opportunity to properly observe a milestone event that I never thought I'd help a loved one usher in again). My brother has more beef with our parents than I do (to the tune of $40K of debt that they fraudulently and unconscionably thrust upon him before he finally moved out, but that's another story for another review), so we invariably vent about our deplorable origins whenever we're together. But this was a happy occasion that called for minimum mutual griping -- and, while Little Bro's girlfriend is well-versed in just how deeply fucked up our parents are and understands our need for the sporadic bitch session, I tend to clam up about such things around her, as her much more loving mother died when she was 14, leaving FSIL at the mercy of both a father and step-father who did not treat her at all like her good-hearted self deserves.
Later, since hubs and I live tantalizingly close to a bar, we made a midnight sojourn to the local watering hole on our way home because, hey, why not go all the way and keep drinking? As I've demonstrated many times before, I'm at a point where I'm pretty comfortable talking about life as a self-appointed orphan; my husband knows this better than anyone else but is still reluctant to broach the topic unless I lead the way (or, you know, we receive another letter from a collection agency about my mother's mounting debt -- which, objectively, I find hilarious considering that not speaking to the horrid shrew in three years means that I never gave her my new address, which she is somehow using to apply for things). But, even in the wake of listening to my brother and me swap grievances about our lousy parents, it wasn't 'til after a few lips-loosening rounds that hubs asked if the wound of severing all ties with my family still hurts. But, really, you can't miss what you never had and you can't hurt where there's no feeling left. I didn't grow up with a fraction of the love I now feel when I spend the holidays or a just-because afternoon with my husband's family, nuclear or extended. And, through the five-Guinness-deep fog I'd worked myself into, I was blindsided by the stone-cold-sober realization what does sting is how all my brother and his girlfriend have is themselves, me, and their friends. And, yeah, they both seem pretty happy with the way things are but that doesn't stop me from feeling terrible on their behalf. Because I've at least been blessed with a second chance at finding out what a close-knit family feels like, to have in-laws who regard me as the daughter they've always wanted and with a parental warmth I've never known. And it kills me that I can't help two of the people I love and want to protect the most fill what has to be a similarly shaped and long-empty void.
It was with that mindset (and self-inflicted guilt, because that's where I'm a viking) I approached a considerable chunk of Eudora Welty's Pulitzer Prize-winning gem of a novel. Laurel, the 40-some-year-old widow who has watched her mother die years before and now stands helplessly aside as her father gives himself up to his age, is left with her young stepmother, hometown friends and neighbors, and a house filled with memories as she grapples with making sense of life without a safety net of unconditional love.
Please do not misunderstand: This is not one of those novels that is eking by on bland mawkishness alone. The writing is sublime. I have spent so much time entrenched in the long-held belief that anyone who opted for five words when twice as many could be deployed just as easily is guilty of not trying hard enough. Discovering Raymond Carver has been instrumental in changing my tune, though the impact of this book alone would have been enough to silence the mulishly stubborn biases of my youth. Welty rivals Carver when it comes to packing a brutalizing force in just enough detail to act as a guiding light through the narrative but leaving so much left unsaid so that the reader is left to contemplate the implications while affixing his or her own personal relevancies to deliver the intended blow of dawning clarity. There is so much power in Welty'a words but it's her silent symbols that convey the most involuble truths. The sadness and loss bursting from both the spoken and un- very nearly had this novel thrumming with compounded grief that needed an outlet before the pages themselves imploded with unexpressed emotions.
That outlet is Laurel's histrionic, selfish and utterly unlikeable stepmother, Fay -- who reminded me so much of my mother that I couldn't help but pound this book that I loved against whatever surface closest to me in achingly frustrated empathy for Laurel. While Laurel is reacquainting herself with her parents as individuals whose context is purely historical and complete now, understanding their place in her life and their significance to each other, coming to the kind of epiphany that is the only preface to closure, Fay runs off with her equally insufferable family as if the death of a spouse is the kind of thing one gets over with a carelessly impoverishing shopping binge and a pedicure. The final run-in between the two unsettlingly close-in-age (but light years apart in maturity, ye gods) women does make for a clunky delivery of a message that Welty implied so well that she certainty didn't need her main character to verbalize it. But their confrontation is so satisfying. It worked for me because grief and loss are not tidy processes. And it also served as long-awaited proof that I can still be positively smitten with a book despite a fist-clenchingly hateful character's prominent role in it.
Even with an ending that seems to mar an otherwise flawless reading experience for so many others, The Optimist's Daughter is beautiful and human and sings of what great writing can do when a great writer is firing on all cylinders. But it is a book that I just could not approach academically. It deserves to be savored and marveled at and its sharp edges absolutely should leave a few cuts and reopened wounds in its aftermath. It is a book that should, above all, be felt to be fully appreciated.
So let me try to establish where I was emotionally during most of my time reading The Optimist's Daughter. I recently spent an evening with my little brother, his girlfriend and some other fine folks in celebration of my future sister-in-law turning 21 (as I spent my 21st birthday starting and finishing a 20-page final paper and then moving out of my dorm room for the summer, I embraced the opportunity to properly observe a milestone event that I never thought I'd help a loved one usher in again). My brother has more beef with our parents than I do (to the tune of $40K of debt that they fraudulently and unconscionably thrust upon him before he finally moved out, but that's another story for another review), so we invariably vent about our deplorable origins whenever we're together. But this was a happy occasion that called for minimum mutual griping -- and, while Little Bro's girlfriend is well-versed in just how deeply fucked up our parents are and understands our need for the sporadic bitch session, I tend to clam up about such things around her, as her much more loving mother died when she was 14, leaving FSIL at the mercy of both a father and step-father who did not treat her at all like her good-hearted self deserves.
Later, since hubs and I live tantalizingly close to a bar, we made a midnight sojourn to the local watering hole on our way home because, hey, why not go all the way and keep drinking? As I've demonstrated many times before, I'm at a point where I'm pretty comfortable talking about life as a self-appointed orphan; my husband knows this better than anyone else but is still reluctant to broach the topic unless I lead the way (or, you know, we receive another letter from a collection agency about my mother's mounting debt -- which, objectively, I find hilarious considering that not speaking to the horrid shrew in three years means that I never gave her my new address, which she is somehow using to apply for things). But, even in the wake of listening to my brother and me swap grievances about our lousy parents, it wasn't 'til after a few lips-loosening rounds that hubs asked if the wound of severing all ties with my family still hurts. But, really, you can't miss what you never had and you can't hurt where there's no feeling left. I didn't grow up with a fraction of the love I now feel when I spend the holidays or a just-because afternoon with my husband's family, nuclear or extended. And, through the five-Guinness-deep fog I'd worked myself into, I was blindsided by the stone-cold-sober realization what does sting is how all my brother and his girlfriend have is themselves, me, and their friends. And, yeah, they both seem pretty happy with the way things are but that doesn't stop me from feeling terrible on their behalf. Because I've at least been blessed with a second chance at finding out what a close-knit family feels like, to have in-laws who regard me as the daughter they've always wanted and with a parental warmth I've never known. And it kills me that I can't help two of the people I love and want to protect the most fill what has to be a similarly shaped and long-empty void.
It was with that mindset (and self-inflicted guilt, because that's where I'm a viking) I approached a considerable chunk of Eudora Welty's Pulitzer Prize-winning gem of a novel. Laurel, the 40-some-year-old widow who has watched her mother die years before and now stands helplessly aside as her father gives himself up to his age, is left with her young stepmother, hometown friends and neighbors, and a house filled with memories as she grapples with making sense of life without a safety net of unconditional love.
Please do not misunderstand: This is not one of those novels that is eking by on bland mawkishness alone. The writing is sublime. I have spent so much time entrenched in the long-held belief that anyone who opted for five words when twice as many could be deployed just as easily is guilty of not trying hard enough. Discovering Raymond Carver has been instrumental in changing my tune, though the impact of this book alone would have been enough to silence the mulishly stubborn biases of my youth. Welty rivals Carver when it comes to packing a brutalizing force in just enough detail to act as a guiding light through the narrative but leaving so much left unsaid so that the reader is left to contemplate the implications while affixing his or her own personal relevancies to deliver the intended blow of dawning clarity. There is so much power in Welty'a words but it's her silent symbols that convey the most involuble truths. The sadness and loss bursting from both the spoken and un- very nearly had this novel thrumming with compounded grief that needed an outlet before the pages themselves imploded with unexpressed emotions.
That outlet is Laurel's histrionic, selfish and utterly unlikeable stepmother, Fay -- who reminded me so much of my mother that I couldn't help but pound this book that I loved against whatever surface closest to me in achingly frustrated empathy for Laurel. While Laurel is reacquainting herself with her parents as individuals whose context is purely historical and complete now, understanding their place in her life and their significance to each other, coming to the kind of epiphany that is the only preface to closure, Fay runs off with her equally insufferable family as if the death of a spouse is the kind of thing one gets over with a carelessly impoverishing shopping binge and a pedicure. The final run-in between the two unsettlingly close-in-age (but light years apart in maturity, ye gods) women does make for a clunky delivery of a message that Welty implied so well that she certainty didn't need her main character to verbalize it. But their confrontation is so satisfying. It worked for me because grief and loss are not tidy processes. And it also served as long-awaited proof that I can still be positively smitten with a book despite a fist-clenchingly hateful character's prominent role in it.
Even with an ending that seems to mar an otherwise flawless reading experience for so many others, The Optimist's Daughter is beautiful and human and sings of what great writing can do when a great writer is firing on all cylinders. But it is a book that I just could not approach academically. It deserves to be savored and marveled at and its sharp edges absolutely should leave a few cuts and reopened wounds in its aftermath. It is a book that should, above all, be felt to be fully appreciated.
June 16, 2016
Achingly beautiful. There is a reason this book won the Pulitzer Prize. There is so much space between the words on the page. You have to do some filling in, and because you have to involve yourself more while reading, you start to merge with Laurel, the narrator. All of Laurel's thoughts and feelings become that much more poignant and revelatory. The story is also imbued with the melancholy and fatalism often seen in good Southern literature. This short book deserves several readings.
October 5, 2014
“Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!”
~Oscar Wilde
I guess I saw the holes in this book. The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered by many a modern day classic. I hate giving low ratings on what are considered classic books because it makes me seem unsophisticated somehow. However, I just don't understand the praise for this book. I didn't feel the characters were very developed, I felt the writing was jumbled and disjointed, and I guess I didn't really see the point.
Fay is one of the primary characters in the book and she didn't have one single redeeming quality. That wasn't necessarily what irked me, what frustrated me is I was expecting some back story to give the reader an understanding of why she was the way she was, but there was nothing. She's just a spoiled selfish woman. How could the optimist fall for her? Throw me a bone here. A lot of the book is about loss and the pain of dealing with death but for some reason it just didn't resonate with me.
It's books like these that make me question why I put myself through this and force myself to read classics. Thankfully there seems to be more classic doughnuts than classic holes.
I guess I saw the holes in this book. The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered by many a modern day classic. I hate giving low ratings on what are considered classic books because it makes me seem unsophisticated somehow. However, I just don't understand the praise for this book. I didn't feel the characters were very developed, I felt the writing was jumbled and disjointed, and I guess I didn't really see the point.
Fay is one of the primary characters in the book and she didn't have one single redeeming quality. That wasn't necessarily what irked me, what frustrated me is I was expecting some back story to give the reader an understanding of why she was the way she was, but there was nothing. She's just a spoiled selfish woman. How could the optimist fall for her? Throw me a bone here. A lot of the book is about loss and the pain of dealing with death but for some reason it just didn't resonate with me.
It's books like these that make me question why I put myself through this and force myself to read classics. Thankfully there seems to be more classic doughnuts than classic holes.
May 23, 2021
Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter is a brief novella focusing on grief and memories. Laurel McKelva Hand has returned to the South years after she has left her childhood home in order to see her father who is dying. In the aftermath of his death, Laurel must sort through the past and delve into her memories of her parents and their relationship. She is a rather stoic, calm woman who composes herself in a reserved, sad way as one might expect a daughter who has lost her father. However, her father’s much younger, second wife, Fay is nothing less than vindictive, arrogant and just plain mean. She is not from this small Mississippi town and cares not for anyone or anything here. Welty really paints her selfish personality through her words and behaviors. For instance, while her husband lies in a hospital bed in New Orleans, trying to recover, Fay’s only concern in that she experience Mardi Gras as it is HER birthday! She is a scene-maker of the utmost degree!
Welty writes a sad and grief-filled story while at the same time she demonstrates how the past and remembrance can be cathartic and healing. Laurel has had to grieve the death of the family that she has lost; her husband, Phil, killed in the war, her mother a few years ago and now her father. Her memories confirm for her that her parents love for each other was deep and that her memories are what will sustain her.
One of the best scenes in the entire novella is the perfect rendering of a small town, southern funeral with the boisterous people talking about their remembrances of the deceased while the casket is on display and the mountain of food and casseroles piled on the table while all the neighbor ladies make sure everything is just right. Welty is a tremendous writer who won the Pulitzer for this work in 1973.
Welty writes a sad and grief-filled story while at the same time she demonstrates how the past and remembrance can be cathartic and healing. Laurel has had to grieve the death of the family that she has lost; her husband, Phil, killed in the war, her mother a few years ago and now her father. Her memories confirm for her that her parents love for each other was deep and that her memories are what will sustain her.
One of the best scenes in the entire novella is the perfect rendering of a small town, southern funeral with the boisterous people talking about their remembrances of the deceased while the casket is on display and the mountain of food and casseroles piled on the table while all the neighbor ladies make sure everything is just right. Welty is a tremendous writer who won the Pulitzer for this work in 1973.
August 4, 2017
This novella has a much heavier, darker mood than I have become accustomed to from Welty. There is little that could be mistaken for humor, and I felt a total abhorrence for the character, Fay, which is also a departure from what I have come to expect from Welty. Her characters are generally likable at some level.
Of course, the subject matter, death and its aftermath, is so serious and Welty addresses it head on. I felt so sad for Laurel and the complete loss she experiences. Even in light of all the kind people who care for her in the town, she has suffered a loss that cannot be lightly comforted.
Perhaps, having lost my own parents, I felt this at a visceral level. I am grateful, and have always been, that I was not an only child, that my loss was shared completely and wholly by others and that my memories were still shared in a way that no outsider could ever have known.
She is a remarkable writer. There is a reason she received the Pulitzer, although this would not be my choice for her best work.
Of course, the subject matter, death and its aftermath, is so serious and Welty addresses it head on. I felt so sad for Laurel and the complete loss she experiences. Even in light of all the kind people who care for her in the town, she has suffered a loss that cannot be lightly comforted.
Perhaps, having lost my own parents, I felt this at a visceral level. I am grateful, and have always been, that I was not an only child, that my loss was shared completely and wholly by others and that my memories were still shared in a way that no outsider could ever have known.
She is a remarkable writer. There is a reason she received the Pulitzer, although this would not be my choice for her best work.
March 18, 2014
You see this character more often in movies, or even in history or real life. Rarely in books, though, I've found. I'm talking about The Scene-Stealer.
It's not Judge McKelva, the self-proclaimed Optimist of the book's title. He's a widower, but now remarried. He gets bumped off early: some issue with his eye requires surgery and then his heart gives out unexpectedly during his recuperation in the hospital.
And it's not Judge McKelva's daughter, Laurel. She lost her husband in the War and grieves still over her mother. She returns to Mississippi from Chicago in the whirlwind of her father's death and funeral. Small-town tradition, loss and memory are her companions in the wake.
You could wrinkle up your head thinking about the lessons here, the symbolism of a perfectly carpentered breadboard, for example. But, honestly, that's hard to do on St. Patrick's Day.
But I perked up every time Fay, the Judge's second wife, came on stage. What a gloriously irreverent, self-centered, unlikeable, say-the-first-thing-that-comes-into-your-brain-and-don't-care-whose-feelings-you-hurt-by-your-candor woman she turns out to be. She's 30 years younger than the Judge and, except for that, it's impossible to see the attraction. But I kept waiting for what she'd say next. Like when the Judge dies and the attending physician, appropriately somber, laments, "I couldn't save him." Fay's response: "You picked my birthday to do it on!" She never, not for one moment, strays from the consistency of that character. And when her family from Texas shows up for the funeral, you see that she got it honestly.
Maybe there should be a sequel: The Scene-Stealer's Daughter. It may be the only occupation left they haven't written a book about.
It's not Judge McKelva, the self-proclaimed Optimist of the book's title. He's a widower, but now remarried. He gets bumped off early: some issue with his eye requires surgery and then his heart gives out unexpectedly during his recuperation in the hospital.
And it's not Judge McKelva's daughter, Laurel. She lost her husband in the War and grieves still over her mother. She returns to Mississippi from Chicago in the whirlwind of her father's death and funeral. Small-town tradition, loss and memory are her companions in the wake.
You could wrinkle up your head thinking about the lessons here, the symbolism of a perfectly carpentered breadboard, for example. But, honestly, that's hard to do on St. Patrick's Day.
But I perked up every time Fay, the Judge's second wife, came on stage. What a gloriously irreverent, self-centered, unlikeable, say-the-first-thing-that-comes-into-your-brain-and-don't-care-whose-feelings-you-hurt-by-your-candor woman she turns out to be. She's 30 years younger than the Judge and, except for that, it's impossible to see the attraction. But I kept waiting for what she'd say next. Like when the Judge dies and the attending physician, appropriately somber, laments, "I couldn't save him." Fay's response: "You picked my birthday to do it on!" She never, not for one moment, strays from the consistency of that character. And when her family from Texas shows up for the funeral, you see that she got it honestly.
Maybe there should be a sequel: The Scene-Stealer's Daughter. It may be the only occupation left they haven't written a book about.
October 5, 2016
"Even if you have kept silent for the sake of the dead, you cannot rest in your silence, as the dead rest."
I think it should he considered good etiquette not to attend a funeral even if one is invited, if one isn't heavily grieved by loss of the deceased or of his/her close ones. I mean what is point of creating an indifferent crowd busy in gossiping and telling tales when there are people genuinely mourning? Isn't disrespectful for dead? As it is, there is friction enough even among those genuinely grieved (which explains the argument in last chapter for me) Mourning seems to be a very private thing that people are forced to do in public.
The impersonal, distant narration - with a lot of conversation thus had made this book a two star stuff. Because although the description was realistic, it was also too much at surface. It is only in second last chapter that rating started picking up when we go inside protagonist Laurel's mind - know about her relationship with her father and only then I could understand the motives behind her actions. It is one of those novels best appreciated in retrospect.
The same can be about Fay. Marrying a rich man twice her age, hiding the existence of her family and too melodramatic ways - she doesn't seem to get a lot of sympathy. In this way, she is like Edith from Stoner, since whatever suffering made her like this remains hidden ( only some subtle hints are given) she comes out as a villain.
"You don’t know the way to fight.” She squinted up one eye. “I had a whole family to teach me.”
August 12, 2012
One of my favorite quotations from this book comes in the second half.
"Memory returned like spring, Laurel thought. Memory had the character of spring. In some cases, it was the old wood that did the blooming."
This is Laurel's thought as she considers the past, the last months of her mother's life when all was unhappiness, her father seeming to drift, the loss of her beloved Phil. And so, memory and death are dealt with and reconciled. As is the present.
Memory and death are two of the major themes of this short novel, but along with these is rebirth, both of the Judge's home garden, described in careful and loving detail by many, and of his daughter. Perhaps also of the Judge who seems not to have been truly living for some time.
I found so much to enjoy here; there are the same poetic writing I've come to expect and anticipate from Welty and the characters who are both eccentric and very human. I will definitely continue to read more of her work and recommend it to others.
"Memory returned like spring, Laurel thought. Memory had the character of spring. In some cases, it was the old wood that did the blooming."
This is Laurel's thought as she considers the past, the last months of her mother's life when all was unhappiness, her father seeming to drift, the loss of her beloved Phil. And so, memory and death are dealt with and reconciled. As is the present.
Memory and death are two of the major themes of this short novel, but along with these is rebirth, both of the Judge's home garden, described in careful and loving detail by many, and of his daughter. Perhaps also of the Judge who seems not to have been truly living for some time.
I found so much to enjoy here; there are the same poetic writing I've come to expect and anticipate from Welty and the characters who are both eccentric and very human. I will definitely continue to read more of her work and recommend it to others.
June 16, 2019
Laurel viaja precipitadamente para estar junto a su padre, el juez McKelva, cuando éste la llama. Está preocupado por su salud, algo le pasa a uno de sus ojos. Hacía tiempo que no se encontraba con su padre, concretamente desde su boda con Fay, su madrastra, una mujer más joven que ella, orgullosa e insoportable. Los hechos se precipitan y Laurel se verá obligada a volver a su pueblo natal, Mount Salus, Mississippi, volver no sólo físicamente sino también con su memoria. Laurel deberá hacer frente a los fantasmas de su pasado, a la relación de sus padres, a su matrimonio... Y esto es lo que más me ha gustado del libro, su peregrinaje a través de la casa y de los recuerdos:
"Cuando Laurel era una niña, en aquella misma habitación y en aquella misma cama donde se encontraba tumbada en ese instante, cerraba los ojos, así, como ahora, y dos añoradas voces nocturnas y rítmicas que leían iban ascendiendo por la escalera, por turnos, hasta llegar a su cama. Apenas notaba que la vencía el sueño, se desperazaba e intentaba mantenerse despierta, sólo para disfrutar de aquellos susurros. Laurel adoraba sus propios libros, pero aún sentía más cariño por los libros de sus padres, porque eran tanto como sus propias voces."
'La hija del optimista' también tiene unos diálogos deliciosos, los que mantienen las vecinas de Laurel, pero es esa nostalgia por el pasado lo que más perdura en mi memoria. La novela transcurre lentamente, pero aún así va in crescendo, hasta un final perfecto. Agradecer a Impedimenta la preciosa edición de este libro.
"Cuando Laurel era una niña, en aquella misma habitación y en aquella misma cama donde se encontraba tumbada en ese instante, cerraba los ojos, así, como ahora, y dos añoradas voces nocturnas y rítmicas que leían iban ascendiendo por la escalera, por turnos, hasta llegar a su cama. Apenas notaba que la vencía el sueño, se desperazaba e intentaba mantenerse despierta, sólo para disfrutar de aquellos susurros. Laurel adoraba sus propios libros, pero aún sentía más cariño por los libros de sus padres, porque eran tanto como sus propias voces."
'La hija del optimista' también tiene unos diálogos deliciosos, los que mantienen las vecinas de Laurel, pero es esa nostalgia por el pasado lo que más perdura en mi memoria. La novela transcurre lentamente, pero aún así va in crescendo, hasta un final perfecto. Agradecer a Impedimenta la preciosa edición de este libro.
March 9, 2023
İyimser Babanın Kızı Eudora Welty ile tanışma kitabım oldu, çok etkilendim.
Kitap yıllar önce annesini kaybeden Laurel’in babasının rahatsızlığı üzerine, doğduğu topraklara, ufak bir Mississippi kasabasına dönüşünü ve bu esnada yaşananları anlatıyor. Bir güney kasabasının adetlerini, insan ilişkilerini resmeden satırlar hayata, aileye, geçmişe dair bir hesaplaşma hikayesine dönüşüyor.
Eudora Welty’nin kısa ancak derin cümleleri beni özellikle etkiledi. Az kelime ile çok şey anlatma dersi vermiş adeta. Son not, bu kitap ile 1973’te Pulitzer Ödülü almış. Şimdiye kadar nasıl bu yazarı okumadım diye kendime kızdım, kendisi ile tanışmama vesile olan Cem Alpan’a yürekten teşekkür ederim.
Kitap yıllar önce annesini kaybeden Laurel’in babasının rahatsızlığı üzerine, doğduğu topraklara, ufak bir Mississippi kasabasına dönüşünü ve bu esnada yaşananları anlatıyor. Bir güney kasabasının adetlerini, insan ilişkilerini resmeden satırlar hayata, aileye, geçmişe dair bir hesaplaşma hikayesine dönüşüyor.
Eudora Welty’nin kısa ancak derin cümleleri beni özellikle etkiledi. Az kelime ile çok şey anlatma dersi vermiş adeta. Son not, bu kitap ile 1973’te Pulitzer Ödülü almış. Şimdiye kadar nasıl bu yazarı okumadım diye kendime kızdım, kendisi ile tanışmama vesile olan Cem Alpan’a yürekten teşekkür ederim.
December 2, 2014
I had a strange reading experience with this book. I'd read a chapter, not connect with it at all, set it aside on my bedside table for a while until I finished the other books sitting around.
Somewhere around page 70, several months later, something clicked. I think it was the description of the funeral and really hooking into Welty's understanding of the intricacies of southern etiquette, spoken but more importantly unspoken (yet expected.) It really solidified it for me when she describes books and how they connected her to her father, who has just died.
The neighbors respect her father for his strength while dying of cancer, while his young second wife is silly and has spurts of dramatic mourning that are not what people want to see.
A few other bits that stood out in my first reading:
"The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much."
"She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams."
"For every book here she had heard their voices, father's and mother's. And perhaps it didn't matter to them, not always, what they read aloud; it was the breath of life flowing between them, and the words of the moment riding on it that held them in delight. Between some two people every word is beautiful."
Somewhere around page 70, several months later, something clicked. I think it was the description of the funeral and really hooking into Welty's understanding of the intricacies of southern etiquette, spoken but more importantly unspoken (yet expected.) It really solidified it for me when she describes books and how they connected her to her father, who has just died.
The neighbors respect her father for his strength while dying of cancer, while his young second wife is silly and has spurts of dramatic mourning that are not what people want to see.
Welty uses a lot of southernisms that are very familiar to those of us living in the region - saying someone "liked-to" like "He liked-to bled to death a mile from home." "Fixing to _____." This is most definitely a southern tale.
"There's no telling when she last had a decent home-cooked meal with honest vegetables," said Miss Tennyson Bullock. "That goes a long way toward explaining everything."
A few other bits that stood out in my first reading:
"The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much."
"She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams."
"For every book here she had heard their voices, father's and mother's. And perhaps it didn't matter to them, not always, what they read aloud; it was the breath of life flowing between them, and the words of the moment riding on it that held them in delight. Between some two people every word is beautiful."
February 12, 2018
B.R.A.CE. 2018 Ένα βιβλίο που ήταν υποψήφιο για το βραβείο Pulitzer
και το κέρδισε κιόλας!
Καλοσυνάτη προειδοποίηση σε περίπτωση που το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο πέσει στα χέρια σας:
"ΜΗΝ ΞΕΚΙΝΗΣΕΤΕ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΠΡΟΛΟΓΟ" Spoiler όλο το βιβλίο! Αφήστε το για το τέλος σαν ένα υπέροχο επίμετρο που, ευτυχώς για την ύπαρξη του, θα σας βοηθήσει ( και με βοήθησε όντως ) να καταλάβετε παραπάνω το κείμενο που διαβάσατε.
Νομίζω για το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο να "μιλήσει" στον αναγνώστη, πρέπει ο αναγνώστης να έχει ζήσει κάποια γεγονότα στην ζωή του, κατά κύριο λόγο δυσάρεστα (απώλεια).
Μιλάει για την απομυθοποίηση των γονιών, για το να αφήνεις το παρελθόν και να μην του επιτρέπεις να σου ορίζει το μέλλον, για το να κατανοείς ποιος είσαι, που θες να φτάσεις και τι πρέπει να ξεπεράσεις.
Παραδέχομαι πως με τον πρόλογο / επίμετρο μπόρεσα να εκτιμήσω καλύτερα το κείμενο, τι ήθελε να πει και που ήθελε να με πάει.
Καλοσυνάτη προειδοποίηση σε περίπτωση που το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο πέσει στα χέρια σας:
"ΜΗΝ ΞΕΚΙΝΗΣΕΤΕ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ ΠΡΟΛΟΓΟ" Spoiler όλο το βιβλίο! Αφήστε το για το τέλος σαν ένα υπέροχο επίμετρο που, ευτυχώς για την ύπαρξη του, θα σας βοηθήσει ( και με βοήθησε όντως ) να καταλάβετε παραπάνω το κείμενο που διαβάσατε.
Νομίζω για το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο να "μιλήσει" στον αναγνώστη, πρέπει ο αναγνώστης να έχει ζήσει κάποια γεγονότα στην ζωή του, κατά κύριο λόγο δυσάρεστα (απώλεια).
Μιλάει για την απομυθοποίηση των γονιών, για το να αφήνεις το παρελθόν και να μην του επιτρέπεις να σου ορίζει το μέλλον, για το να κατανοείς ποιος είσαι, που θες να φτάσεις και τι πρέπει να ξεπεράσεις.
Παραδέχομαι πως με τον πρόλογο / επίμετρο μπόρεσα να εκτιμήσω καλύτερα το κείμενο, τι ήθελε να πει και που ήθελε να με πάει.
October 18, 2019
Laurel, a young widow, returns to the South to be with her dying father; after he dies, she and her snotty young stepmother return to her family house in Mississippi. This won the Pulitzer, but I disliked it. First, I always find the proud clinginess of the Southern patriot to be boring as well as arrogant. But mainly, I found this to be a rather simple tale, with a simple moral, written simply: a small bird in her house utterly terrifies Laurel; it doubtless represents her fear or helplessness in the face of loss — but it struck me as trite. The stepmother is a flat, unconvincing character of pure selfishness and distrust. The book’s concluding scene has more cohesiveness; Laurel realizes that the past is inviolable, but memory should serve, rather than haunt, the living. As I say, simple lessons.
August 25, 2007
A perfect novel about family, hometowns, the grip of memory, and the dignity of living with sadness. So quietly and eloquently written and brutally full of heart.
April 25, 2023
Poor Eyes
When Eudora Welty (1909 -- 2001) began work on the story that became "The Optimist's Daughter" she had difficulty settling upon a title. At different times she considered "Poor Eyes", "An Only Child", "Baltimore" and even "The Flickering Light of Vision" as possible titles. Welty's editor at the "New Yorker" and close friend, William Maxwell urged her to keep her original title. In a letter to Welty of January 29, 1968, Maxwell wrote: "I am still partial to 'The Optimist's Daughter", because, by its ironic tone, it suggests a certain distance between the writer and the woman in the story, and because it also, again by its irony, suggests, matches, somehow, the full horror of the subject matter". Welty followed Maxwell's suggestion and retained her original title. "The Optimist's Daughter" first was published as a story in the "New Yorker" in 1969 and then, in an expanded version, as a novel in 1972. In 1973, Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for the book.
Maxwell was correct about the irony in the title, as between the primary character, Laurel McKelva, and her father, Judge Clint McKelva. But Welty's difficulty in deciding upon a title suggests the multi-faceted character of this dense, closely-written short work. Unusually for Welty, "The Optimist's Daughter" has strong autobiographical elements. She interrupted her work on a longer project in 1966 to write the story following the death of her mother. The character of Becky McKelva, the mother of Laurel who was raised in West Virginia and became Judge McKelva's first wife, seems to have been modeled closely on Welty's mother. And a major theme of "The Optimist's Daughter" is coming to terms with grief and moving on with life.
The story is set primarily in New Orleans and in the small town of Mount Salus, Mississippi in the early 1960's. Short but important scenes take place in West Virginia and Baltimore. When the book begins, Judge McKelva is in New Orleans to consult with his friend, a distinguished opthamologist, about an eye problem. With the Judge is his second wife, Fay, 40, to whom he has been married for about two years and his widowed daughter, Laurel, in her mid-40s. Laurel works as an artistic designer in Chicago and has returned to be with her father when she learns of his illness. After a serious operation on his eye, Judge McKelva ultimately collapses and dies. Fay and Laurel return to Mount Salus for the funeral.
The book moves slowly and deliberately in both the New Orleans and the Mount Salus sections of the story. Laurel is thoughtful and reserved and grieves deeply for her father and for her own life and tragedy. She became a widow when her husband was killed in WW II. Fay, is egotistical, earthy, insensitive, crude, and dishonest. Although she tells Laurel that she has no remaining family, except for a grandfather, her mother and kin from Texas arrive in Mount Salus for the funeral. Welty makes a great deal of the contrast between the brash, vulgar Texas family of Fay, and the reserved ladies of Mount Salus, lifelong friends of the Judge and of Laurel. Welty spends a good deal of space in the description of the events leading up to and including the funeral with much character discussion of Fay and her family, and the Mississippians. The relationship between Fay and the McKelva's reminded me of the relationship between the established and wealthy Ponder family and the trashy Peacock family, also connected by marriage, in an earlier Welty short novel called "The Ponder Heart".
"The Optimist's Daughter" is a highly internalized work. There is little in the way of overt action. The climax of the work occurs when Laurel spends three days largely alone in the old family home following her father's funeral. Surrounded with evidence of her youth, Laurel reflects on her father's life and death, and on the death of her mother, Becky, who had grown up in West Virginia. Becky died after a long, painful, and delirious illness. Laurel also reflects on the brief period of happiness she had enjoyed with her husband, Phil.
The writing is terse, precise, and evocative throughout and uses a great deal of nature symbolism. Welty comes to focus on how Laurel comes to understand her life and her relationship to Fay. Welty does not utterly reject Fay, in spite of all her crudity, but comes to show her with a degree of sympathy. And Laurel comes to an understanding of herself. She is able to move forward with the remainder of her life with a sense of meaning and hope for the future.
"The Optimist's Daughter" explores themes of differences among people, past and present, loss and moving on with a high degree of wisdom, subtlety, and humor. The book consists of only a small number of scenes but they are developed extensively with great artistry. This is an excellent novel that bears close reading by an important American author. I was inspired to read this book by reading a recent collection of correspondence between Welty and William Maxwell, edited by Suzanne Marrs,. "What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell". Maxwell's letter to Welty about the title of the book, discussed early in this review, is drawn from Marrs' edition of the letters.
Robin Friedman
When Eudora Welty (1909 -- 2001) began work on the story that became "The Optimist's Daughter" she had difficulty settling upon a title. At different times she considered "Poor Eyes", "An Only Child", "Baltimore" and even "The Flickering Light of Vision" as possible titles. Welty's editor at the "New Yorker" and close friend, William Maxwell urged her to keep her original title. In a letter to Welty of January 29, 1968, Maxwell wrote: "I am still partial to 'The Optimist's Daughter", because, by its ironic tone, it suggests a certain distance between the writer and the woman in the story, and because it also, again by its irony, suggests, matches, somehow, the full horror of the subject matter". Welty followed Maxwell's suggestion and retained her original title. "The Optimist's Daughter" first was published as a story in the "New Yorker" in 1969 and then, in an expanded version, as a novel in 1972. In 1973, Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for the book.
Maxwell was correct about the irony in the title, as between the primary character, Laurel McKelva, and her father, Judge Clint McKelva. But Welty's difficulty in deciding upon a title suggests the multi-faceted character of this dense, closely-written short work. Unusually for Welty, "The Optimist's Daughter" has strong autobiographical elements. She interrupted her work on a longer project in 1966 to write the story following the death of her mother. The character of Becky McKelva, the mother of Laurel who was raised in West Virginia and became Judge McKelva's first wife, seems to have been modeled closely on Welty's mother. And a major theme of "The Optimist's Daughter" is coming to terms with grief and moving on with life.
The story is set primarily in New Orleans and in the small town of Mount Salus, Mississippi in the early 1960's. Short but important scenes take place in West Virginia and Baltimore. When the book begins, Judge McKelva is in New Orleans to consult with his friend, a distinguished opthamologist, about an eye problem. With the Judge is his second wife, Fay, 40, to whom he has been married for about two years and his widowed daughter, Laurel, in her mid-40s. Laurel works as an artistic designer in Chicago and has returned to be with her father when she learns of his illness. After a serious operation on his eye, Judge McKelva ultimately collapses and dies. Fay and Laurel return to Mount Salus for the funeral.
The book moves slowly and deliberately in both the New Orleans and the Mount Salus sections of the story. Laurel is thoughtful and reserved and grieves deeply for her father and for her own life and tragedy. She became a widow when her husband was killed in WW II. Fay, is egotistical, earthy, insensitive, crude, and dishonest. Although she tells Laurel that she has no remaining family, except for a grandfather, her mother and kin from Texas arrive in Mount Salus for the funeral. Welty makes a great deal of the contrast between the brash, vulgar Texas family of Fay, and the reserved ladies of Mount Salus, lifelong friends of the Judge and of Laurel. Welty spends a good deal of space in the description of the events leading up to and including the funeral with much character discussion of Fay and her family, and the Mississippians. The relationship between Fay and the McKelva's reminded me of the relationship between the established and wealthy Ponder family and the trashy Peacock family, also connected by marriage, in an earlier Welty short novel called "The Ponder Heart".
"The Optimist's Daughter" is a highly internalized work. There is little in the way of overt action. The climax of the work occurs when Laurel spends three days largely alone in the old family home following her father's funeral. Surrounded with evidence of her youth, Laurel reflects on her father's life and death, and on the death of her mother, Becky, who had grown up in West Virginia. Becky died after a long, painful, and delirious illness. Laurel also reflects on the brief period of happiness she had enjoyed with her husband, Phil.
The writing is terse, precise, and evocative throughout and uses a great deal of nature symbolism. Welty comes to focus on how Laurel comes to understand her life and her relationship to Fay. Welty does not utterly reject Fay, in spite of all her crudity, but comes to show her with a degree of sympathy. And Laurel comes to an understanding of herself. She is able to move forward with the remainder of her life with a sense of meaning and hope for the future.
"The Optimist's Daughter" explores themes of differences among people, past and present, loss and moving on with a high degree of wisdom, subtlety, and humor. The book consists of only a small number of scenes but they are developed extensively with great artistry. This is an excellent novel that bears close reading by an important American author. I was inspired to read this book by reading a recent collection of correspondence between Welty and William Maxwell, edited by Suzanne Marrs,. "What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell". Maxwell's letter to Welty about the title of the book, discussed early in this review, is drawn from Marrs' edition of the letters.
Robin Friedman
August 4, 2017
Oh my... I don't know where to start. First, I think Eudora Welty is a great writer. I haven't read much of her work, but you don't have to read much to be able to tell how brilliant she is. The way she uses language, and the way she constructs her sentences are just beautiful. That is why I can easily give this book three stars. There are parts of this book where the prose is just lovely. This being said, I have issues with the rest of it.
I am from the South, just as Welty is. So, I feel like we should be "speaking" the same language in many ways. But, at least to me, some of the characters seem inauthentic. Fay's family is actually comical, as is Fay herself. But, then there is a very deep and reflective part of this novel as well. To me, the two put together make it rather disjointed. The story-line itself does not flow well for me and seems very concocted and unnatural -- almost forced, if that makes sense.
I can see many can get a lot out of this book. The parts of the book that reflect on Laurel's grief and how she process it are very good.
And, maybe it is just me because I expected a lot. It is a Pulitzer novel, and I know what Eudora Welty is capable of. So, I went in expecting an "experience." It was just okay for me.
I am from the South, just as Welty is. So, I feel like we should be "speaking" the same language in many ways. But, at least to me, some of the characters seem inauthentic. Fay's family is actually comical, as is Fay herself. But, then there is a very deep and reflective part of this novel as well. To me, the two put together make it rather disjointed. The story-line itself does not flow well for me and seems very concocted and unnatural -- almost forced, if that makes sense.
I can see many can get a lot out of this book. The parts of the book that reflect on Laurel's grief and how she process it are very good.
And, maybe it is just me because I expected a lot. It is a Pulitzer novel, and I know what Eudora Welty is capable of. So, I went in expecting an "experience." It was just okay for me.
April 14, 2017
This was just not my thing. While parts of the writing was good and the main two characters were excellent, it just threw too much my way and I started to get pointlessly confused as a reader. I didn't hate or like this. I thought it to be extremely average. I don't recommend it, though.
I am giving this one a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
I am giving this one a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
July 12, 2011
Welty's novel has spunk. Horrified by the new wife's character at the beginning of a narrative that seems built around an old man dying, my initial impression was that this book would be an ensemble cast narrative of a specific Southern community and somewhat comic but lightweight reading. The structure, however, changes as the book continues. From a narrative rife with dialogue, there is a deepening of the layers during the later passages about the optimist's daughter and much prose that delicately pokes at the fabric of memory and a child's relationship to both her birth mother and her father. Just when you think the introspection is where the book will leave off, however, Welty satisfies with some sharp dramatic prose that takes the book full circle. I really enjoyed this novel and its stylistic departures. They gave it a rich and satisfying feel, almost as if the author had said: "Oh, you think you're reading one kind of book. How about this? And that?" I love to read the work of complex literary minds where the heart is in the details. It lends a sort of optimism about what literature does and can do without templates that feel plasticized. :) I'd read this again.
February 18, 2018
Este livro tem passagens lindíssimas.
Frases daquelas que lemos e voltamos atrás para reler uma, duas, três vezes.
O tema sobre o qual se debruça é dos mais delicados, perturbantes e emotivos pelo qual qualquer ser humano tem de sobreviver - a passagem de um ente querido.
Então porquê as 2 estrelas?
Eudora Welty. A escrita de Eudora Welty. Não consegui sentir-me cativada, envolvida.
Foi um livro que passou pelas minhas mãos mas não consigo abandoná-lo sentindo algo por ele.
Estou anestesiada.
Não sinto nada.
Sinto-me vazia.
Oca.
E penso que uma leitura com tão belas frases, sobre um tema tão Humano, não deveria ser assim.
“Quando Laurel era criança, neste quarto e nesta cama onde se encontrava agora, fechava os olhos assim e o rítmico som nocturno das vozes dos dois entes queridos, a lerem alternadamente, subia as escadas para ir ter com ela. (...) Pela noite fora, as vozes deles a lerem um para o outro (...) sem deixar que nenhum silêncio as interrompesse, uniam-se numa voz única e ininterrupta que a envolvia (...) Adormecia sob um manto aveludado de palavras, (...), enquanto eles prosseguiam a leitura no interior dos seus sonhos". Página 49
“Mas a culpa por sobrevivermos àqueles que amamos, é justo que a carreguemos, pensava ela. Sobreviver-lhes é uma desconsideração que lhes fazemos.” Página 121
“A memória pode ser ferida, uma e outra vez, mas aí talvez resida a sua clemência final. Enquanto for vulnerável ao momento da vida, vive para nós, e enquanto vive, e enquanto formos capazes, podemos dar-lhe o que lhe e devido.” Página 132
Frases daquelas que lemos e voltamos atrás para reler uma, duas, três vezes.
O tema sobre o qual se debruça é dos mais delicados, perturbantes e emotivos pelo qual qualquer ser humano tem de sobreviver - a passagem de um ente querido.
Então porquê as 2 estrelas?
Eudora Welty. A escrita de Eudora Welty. Não consegui sentir-me cativada, envolvida.
Foi um livro que passou pelas minhas mãos mas não consigo abandoná-lo sentindo algo por ele.
Estou anestesiada.
Não sinto nada.
Sinto-me vazia.
Oca.
E penso que uma leitura com tão belas frases, sobre um tema tão Humano, não deveria ser assim.
“Quando Laurel era criança, neste quarto e nesta cama onde se encontrava agora, fechava os olhos assim e o rítmico som nocturno das vozes dos dois entes queridos, a lerem alternadamente, subia as escadas para ir ter com ela. (...) Pela noite fora, as vozes deles a lerem um para o outro (...) sem deixar que nenhum silêncio as interrompesse, uniam-se numa voz única e ininterrupta que a envolvia (...) Adormecia sob um manto aveludado de palavras, (...), enquanto eles prosseguiam a leitura no interior dos seus sonhos". Página 49
“Mas a culpa por sobrevivermos àqueles que amamos, é justo que a carreguemos, pensava ela. Sobreviver-lhes é uma desconsideração que lhes fazemos.” Página 121
“A memória pode ser ferida, uma e outra vez, mas aí talvez resida a sua clemência final. Enquanto for vulnerável ao momento da vida, vive para nós, e enquanto vive, e enquanto formos capazes, podemos dar-lhe o que lhe e devido.” Página 132
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