HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty
Loading...

The Ponder Heart (original 1954; edition 1967)

by Eudora Welty (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
5881240,811 (3.67)77
Edna Earle Ponder, who runs a hotel in a small Mississippi town, tells the story of her beloved, softhearted, but trying Uncle Daniel.
Member:KimSalyers
Title:The Ponder Heart
Authors:Eudora Welty (Author)
Info:Mariner Books (1967), Edition: 1, 168 pages
Collections:Your library, Wishlist, Currently reading, To read, Read but unowned
Rating:
Tags:to-read

Work Information

The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty (1954)

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 77 mentions

English (10)  Spanish (2)  All languages (12)
Showing 1-5 of 10 (next | show all)
The Publisher Says: Daniel Ponder is the amiable heir to the wealthiest family in Clay County, Mississippi. To friends and strangers, he’s also the most generous, having given away heirlooms, a watch, and so far, at least one family business. His niece, Edna Earle, has a solution to save the Ponder fortune from Daniel’s mortifying philanthropy: As much as she loves Daniel, she’s decided to have him institutionalized.

Foolproof as the plan may seem, it comes with a kink—one that sets in motion a runaway scheme of mistaken identity, a hapless local widow, a reckless wedding, a dim-witted teenage bride, and a twist of dumb luck that lands this once-respectable Southern family in court to brave an embarrassing trial for murder. It’s become the talk of Clay County. And the loose-tongued Edna Earle will tell you all about it.

“The most revered figure in contemporary American letters,” said the New York Times of Eudora Welty, which also hailed The Ponder Heart—a winner of the William Dean Howells Medal which was adapted into both a 1956 Broadway play and a 2001 PBS Masterpiece series—as “Miss Welty at her comic, compassionate best.”



THIS IS MY ENTRY INTO THE 1954 CLUB...reviews of books published in 1954.

My Review: This magical moment of Southern history was first published in The New Yorker magazine, with the whimsically funny line drawings in my Kindle edition, in 1953. How I wish I had been there, that I'd seen it in that form...I was, obviously, unable to attend the 1956 Broadway performance of the play adapted from this book (being still as yet unborn) but I certainly saw the PBS Masterpiece Theater production with Peter MacNicol and JoBeth Williams as Uncle Daniel and Edna Earle Ponder. It was...fine. Not a patch on the read, but...fine. Like 2001 itself, it was no patch on 1953, or 1956.

The reason this novella marches on, I think, is that it is the perfect length and in the precise emotional register for Miss Eudora Welty's powers to come full bore on it. I am certain that its long-term popularity is down to Miss Edna Earle Ponder and her absolutely amazing narrative voice:
I used to dread he might get hold of one of these occasional travelers that wouldn’t come in unless they had to—the kind that would break in on a story with a set of questions, and wind it up with a list of what Uncle Daniel’s faults were: some Yankee.
–and–
Miss Teacake Magee lived here all her life. She sings in the choir of the Baptist Church every blessed Sunday; couldn’t get her out. And sings louder than all the rest put together, so loud it would make you lose your place.
–and–
The Peacocks are the kind of people keep the mirror outside on the front porch, and go out and pick railroad lilies to bring inside the house, and wave at trains till the day they die. The most they probably hoped for was that somebody’d come find oil in the front yard and fly in the house and tell them about it.

It's the voice that I sense in all Miss Eudora's very best writing, the voice of a certain woman whose presence in every Southern matriarchy is inevitable: The "excellent woman" of Barbara Pym's stories with a different accent and a slightly more acid tongue. In Miss Edna Earle, I do believe the type reached her apotheosis. She narrates the whole sorry saga of Grandpa Ponder's attempts to corral his son's bizarre, generous heart within the Institution of Marriage. After all, the mental institution couldn't even hold him a week. The problem is, you see, Uncle Daniel Ponder isn't crazy. Isn't, in fact, much of anything except smilingly delighted to be alive, and willing to do whatever it takes to give that same joy to others. And Miss Edna Earle, being a true-born Ponder and a lot sharper than Uncle Daniel, sees Grandpa's point...helps him as best she can...and, when the marriage "didn't hold out," she accepts Uncle Daniel's just going to need watching so he doesn't give away the whole of the Ponder fortune.

Nobody thought to worry about the dear soul finding another wife.

This time, though, as one might expect, Uncle Daniel finds the wrongest wife possible: A silly little girl of seventeen from a family of no-count nobodies. The shock of it! Why, Grandpa Ponder finally succumbs to this shock to "the Ponder heart" and now where is Miss Edna Earle going to get help dealing with Uncle Daniel? Especially now that his little child bride is all of a sudden dead....

What follows is an absolutely side-splittingly funny murder trial, a startling bunch of revelations about Uncle Daniel (not really) and a juicy trial for the gossips to chew over til Kingdom Come (that bit's true). There is, as always, The Welty Touch over every square inch of this magical little farce. There's the occasional nasty epithet, but never from Miss Edna Earle or Uncle Daniel; there's not one single sign of modernity in the story, in the structure or the tale of it. This is the way Southern women of a century ago told their stories to anyone who desired to listen.

I desired to listen. ( )
  richardderus | Apr 22, 2022 |
About halfway through this book I stopped and looked up and said something forceful to the effect that Holy God, this was the funniest book I'd read in ages. But I hadn't laughed out loud once, because, I realised, there weren't any jokes in it. Narrator Edna Earl is not the sort to go telling jokes; but when she described something as being done 'politely' she actually means the exact opposite, and that's what my English teacher taught me was the definition of irony. It's a little masterpiece of southern US voice and place, like Faulkner via Austen - all the wonderful locutions of language and syntax without the apocalyptic passions. Instead we get Edna Earl and her Uncle Daniel and their familial doings and complications, most arising from Uncle Daniel's heedless largesse and the efforts to restrain his prodigal generosity and the rich comic drama arising from his precipitative second marriage. ( )
  Nigel_Quinlan | Oct 21, 2015 |
Yet another beautiful story by Welty -- full of almost unbelievable eccentricity and Southern charm. How many Uncle Davids are out there giving away their money and lost in a world that is truly outside of themselves. ( )
  AliceAnna | Oct 22, 2014 |
This humorous story of Uncle Daniel Ponder is told through the eyes of his niece, Edna Earle. Much of the action centers on his marriage, his wife's death, and his subsequent trial. An early humorous moment includes when he is committed to the asylum but turns the table on the relative who had him committed. A later humorous scene begins at the moment Uncle Daniel takes the stand in the trial. It is a good example of Southern literature from the period in which it was written. While some may call it racist today, I don't really think that was the author's intent. She was simply using common verbiage that both blacks and whites used at that time period. While this book will never be a favorite with me, it does a good job of evoking a by-gone era. ( )
  thornton37814 | May 13, 2014 |
I love Eudora Welty. This one reminded me of "Why I Live at the PO". I was glad that it was full novel length instead of a short story like PO. Lots of quirky characters and a wonderful narrator. Ponder Heart is a delightful read full of laughs and fun. ( )
  njcur | Feb 13, 2014 |
Showing 1-5 of 10 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors (2 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Welty, Eudoraprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Krush, JoeIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
McNeil, HelenIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
To
Mary Louise Aswell,
William and Emily Maxwell
First words
My Uncle Daniel's just like your uncle, if you've got one - only he has one weakness.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Edna Earle Ponder, who runs a hotel in a small Mississippi town, tells the story of her beloved, softhearted, but trying Uncle Daniel.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Edna Earle's Uncle Daniel Ponder is quite a character in the town of Clay, Mississippi: he carries a Stetson, dresses fit to kill in a snow white suit and is as good as gold - everyone will admit that. But the trouble with Uncle Ponder is he's as rich as Croesus and a great deal too generous. He gave Edna Earle a hotel, and once he even tried to give away his own lot in a cemetery. But when his first marriage to Miss "Teacake" Magee didn't work out, he needed someone else to give things to. So he married seventeen-year-old Bonnie Dee Peacock from a poor backwoods family who "could cut hair and looked as though a good gust of wind might carry her off". She was carried off, but not by the wind - and the result, related in Edna Earle's rattling tongue, is a masterpiece of comic absurdity: an uproarious tale of small town life and the deeply eccentric Ponder family.
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.67)
0.5
1 1
1.5
2 9
2.5 1
3 24
3.5 8
4 32
4.5 2
5 18

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 206,756,036 books! | Top bar: Always visible