October 2014: Eudora Welty

Sorry for not getting the thread up sooner, MJ reminded me that things were a bit out of date the other day, but I've come down with the world's worst cold ever, argh!, and meant to do stuff then but have hardly been online. Sorry guys!

So, this month we've got Eudora Welty as our author! Who's read some of her work? Anyone have any suggestions on titles? I see she's written quite a number of short stories, 2/3rds of her work is short story collections; has anyone read both short stories and novels, have any thoughts between them?

What is everyone planning to read?

The university library has only Losing Battles of her novels, and one short story collection, and her autobiographical essay. The public library system has several of her novels but they're in the background collection, not the regular library, so we'll have to figure out how to get them. But they have The robber bridegroom, The ponder heart, The optimist's daughter, and Delta wedding. So I will probably choose one of those and finally figure out the whole achtergrondcollectie deal.

Great! I recently ordered an anthology of her stories. It should arrive any day now. I remember reading "Why I Live at the P.O.," which is about a young woman who moved into the post office because she couldn't bear another moment with her dysfunctional family. My family is similar, so I spent a lot of time laughing and crying with Ms. Welty. I don't have good recall of most of the stuff I read in high school (fifty years ago) but I'll never forget that one.

I found this tiny excerpt from "Why I Live at the P.O." on the B&N website. Most of her stories are about eccentric characters and dysfunctional families. Think Anne Tyler with an outrageous sense of humor.

"I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella=Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove, taking "Pose Youself" photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. Told him I was one-sided. Bigger on one side than the other, which is a deliberate, calculated falsehood: I'm the same. Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason she's spoiled."

She writes in Southern Mississippi dialect, but she isn't hard to follow like some writers who write in dialect.

Oh look! The New York Times has recordings of Ms. Welty reading three of her stories, including "Why I Live at the P.O.," "A Worn Path," and another one that I've never read. If A Warn Path doesn't bring tears to your eyes there's something wrong with you.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/22/specials/welty.html

I have The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty but don't plan on reading all of them (it's over 600 pages) . . . so recommendations would be welcome.

Looking at the Table of Contents this volume combines 4 previous collections: "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories" (1941), "The Wide Net and Other Stories" (1943), "The Golden Apple" (1949), "The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories" (1955), plus two uncollected stories.

I ordered Collected Stories and it should be here tomorrow or Friday. I used to have a Library of America volume called Stories, Memoirs and Essays or something like that but I must have given it away. Anyway, I can't find it.

>4 JackieCarroll: Ooh nice, I will have to check out that link, I love an author reading their own stuff!

Doing some research on what to read I found this little factoid (care of Wikipedia) for those of you old enough to remember Eudora email: "The name of the email program Eudora, developed by Steve Dorner in 1990, was inspired by Welty's story "Why I Live at the P.O." Welty was reportedly "pleased and amused" by the tribute."

Also
"Each October, Mississippi University for Women hosts the "Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium" to promote and celebrate the work of contemporary Southern writers."

Checking the MUW website I learn that this year's symposium is on October 23rd, 24th, and 25th, 2014

"The theme for this year's symposium is "''Homesick for Somewhere': Displacement, loss, and longing in the South" and is inspired by Eudora Welty's story "Kin" from her collection The Bride of Innisfallen.
. . . The full schedule can be found on our poster or the events listings on Facebook, Goodreads, and LibraryThing.

The LT link goes to: https://www.librarything.com/venue/44134/Eudora-Welty-Writers-Symposium-at-Missi...
(In case anyone is in/near Mississippi and/or wants to learn more about how her work is currently being discussed.)

I'm going to try to read the short stories that won the O. Henry award and those that made it into The New Yorker . . . and then see where that leads me. The collection The Golden Apples looks to be a novel-length group of connected stories, so might be good for those who don't really like short stories :)

Thanks for sharing the factoid about Eudora mail. I didn't know that.

I was thinking that Powerhouse was first published in Atlantic Monthly, but I'm not sure. I did some internet searches to try to verify it and couldn't find anything about it. I did, however find this lovely interview in the Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4013/the-art-of-fiction-no-47-eudora-we...

In this interview she calls herself a short story writer who sometimes accidentally writes novels.

> 9
Thanks for the PR ref. I especially liked the section about Faulkner being like a mountain . . . :)

I just finished The Hitch-Hikers. I'm sure I'm missing the point on this one. I just started a new med that has turned my brain to mush, and I'd appreciate it if someone would enlighten me on this one.

I just started The Optimist's Daughter, about a family: an older retired Judge, his grown daughter, his recent wife (Fay), and their memories of his late wife (Becky). My favorite part so far is when the Judge is diagnosed with an illness and the new wife says "I don't see why this had to happen to ME?" . . . I laughed out loud. (My mom has always responded to anyone else's illness/problems as if they were purposely designed to inconvenience HER. :)

I'm also enjoying the settings so far, Mississippi and New Orleans.

I'm so disappointed! I looked for that story after I read your post, but it's not in my book. I'm going to put it on my wish list, and I'm sure I'll come across it sooner or later.

>13 JackieCarroll: It's a short (180 pages) novel, not a story.
( I know I said I was going to read stories, but this was available in the library. I think it was her last novel (1972).)

Thanks >14 LucindaLibri:.
That might help me track it down.

The robber bridegroom



Reading the first couple of pages of Eudora Welty's novel The robber bridegroom is an exhilarating experience. In adopting the writing style of the Brothers Grimm fairy-tales, she creates an entirely novel reading feeling with The robber bridegroom. The style is wonderfully befitting the story. Adopting this prose style to describe this story, which is set in the deep south of the United States shows her masterly talent to create a true novelty novel. It not only shows that the style of the Grimm Brothers can still be used, it can be be transplanted across the Atlantic and works just as natural with local characters in the legendary past of African-American story-telling in Mississippi. By combining the two story telling traditions, Welty gives new depth to the idea of universal literature.

The robber bridegroom does not only feature and antiquated style, the story is set in eighteenth-century Natchez, Mississippi, has characteristics of earlier story-telling traditions, involving somewhat confusing antics, and a multitude of characters, which make the story-line difficult to follow. For example, the story begins with two of the main characters sharing a bed of three bed fellows, a habit occurring quite naturally at that time as travellers sought lodging in inns. This scene introduces two of the main characters, as Jamie Lockhart does Clement Musgrove a good turn. Later on, Lockhart bids for Musgrove's daughter Rosamond.

The robber bridegroom is a wonderful reading experience, but the plot was rather a bit confusing. Not being very familiar with the Brothers Grimm, it is not clear how the story is related to the tale, although this does not seem to matter much. The novel can be read in its own right, as a classic of the Southern novel.

>16 edwinbcn:
I now wonder about any connection between Welty's book and Atwood's The Robber Bride? Might have to do a little research on that.

You can begin by looking at Wikipedia, which has several pages devoted to the original Grimm's tale and the spin-offs, both by Eudora welty and Margaret Atwood.

Yesterday, I started reading The Golden Apples. I had some difficulty getting used to the style, at first. The Golden Apples is a collection of stories that are interlinked, so that the book forms a tpe of hybrid between short stories and a novel.

The first story, "The Golden Apples" befittingly is set during Hallowe'en. It describes and occurrance that is at once so likely and unlikely that some wonder whether they have seen a ghost. For all its shortness, it is a very powerful story in that it clearly sets the scene for all stories in the by-gone days of slavery in the South in the period of leading up to the Great War.

I read half-way through or rather into the second story, "June Recital" which is almost as melancholy as Willa Cather's "Wagner Matinee, recalling lost summers and an innocence of many a summer ago, through memories which are projected onto a deserted house, thus creating a ghost- or dream-like experience.

>18 edwinbcn:
Yes, I did Google/Wiki it . . . I mean actual research . . . you know, reading original sources, commentaries, etc. :)