Sunday, September 9, 2007

The Optimist's Daughter, Part II, Chps. 1 - 4

As I said, this book would not have been my choice to lead off this experiment. It is not that I find it difficult reading - I am just not all that compelled to pick it up once I have put it down. But big thanks to my friends at OTB for their encouragement, since so many of them were so excited by the idea.

Part II:

Part II is dominated by the return of Judge McKelva to his home - for the wake and the funeral.

These scenes will be familiar to anyone who has lost a loved one, especially for any child who has lost a parent. On the day after my father passed away, his entire family (at least the feminine part of it, anyway) - sisters, sisters-in-law, nieces - all descended upon our home, to clean, mostly, and cook. To console in their own way. It was a nice gesture, in its way, but to some extent an intrusion, too. Still, it is an example of the kind of dynamics that surround mourning, which Welty illustrates in this section. While clearly deeply rooted in her Southern upbringing, these scenes have a universal feel to them.

The section is dominated by two moments - one, the arrival of Fay's family, the Chisom's. It is fairly apparent, even before the narrator tells us:

Laurel closed her eyes, in the recognition of what had made the Chisoms seem familiar to her. They might have come out of that night in the hospital waiting room - out of all times of trouble, past or future - the great, interrelated family of those who never know the meaning of what has happened to them...

that the family is the New Orleans hospital are a warning of things to come. Fay had lied to Laurel earlier, claiming all of her relatives were dead and at first, she does not seem pleased to see them. But, by the end of the section, she is taking an impromptu trip to Texas with them because she wants to be with people who "speak her language." Much of that language is regarding her prospective inheritance of the McKelva home.

The second scene that dominates is during the viewing that takes place in the home. Again, anyone who has ever attended a wake will recognize the story-telling of the recently departed that takes place here. But Laurel is particularly perturbed by some of the stories being shared by Major Bullock, an old friend of her father's. She thinks he is spreading a false impression of her father, as a man prone to dramatics and grandiosity. She insists her father really was modest. She feels her father's life is more in danger now, in death, as being portrayed differently than it was.

As an aside, I think that this is both an interesting and true comment - the lives of those who died are left up to how those who left perceive them, even if the one who has passed on has left some legacy - written or otherwise. And in a sense, their "true" lives are in danger since the tendency is either to deify or demonize. However, that is also certainly part of the ritual of death, especially during that period immediately following a loss. Laurel's struggle to have her father perceived "truly" is understandable but a bit of a lost cause at the wake. And, in any case, there is no reason to believe that Laurel's perceptions of the Judge are any truer than Major Bullock's.

As stated, the house is becoming a bone of contention. Additionally, we are getting some glimpse into Laurel’s mother, Becky. She had a closed casket, for some mysterious reason not yet named. And she is the one that Laurel can envision taking on the KKK, in direct and dramatic fashion, not the Judge (as was the point of Major Bullock's story).

Sunday, August 5, 2007

The Optimist's Daughter, Part 1, Chapters 1 - 4

I confess, I was disappointed when I first saw that The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty, was number one on the list. I have never really gotten into Southern fiction as a literary genre. On top of that, I had read this book before, the summer before I went to college, and it hadn't really made a huge impression on me. In fact, just last winter, I sold my copy to a used bookstore. But here I am, having bought it back from the same used book store, reading it.

It begins in New Orleans, in a hospital. (As an aside, reading about hospital rooms in New Orleans reminds me of those who were stranded there - both in the city and in the hospitals - during Katrina). Laurel McKelva has returned to the South to help her father, Judge McKelva, who is having trouble with his eye. Judge McKelva is the optimist of the book's title. Laurel's mother is dead and her father has married Fay, a classic gold-digger if ever one was presented in literature. The first section of the book presents the reader with the aftermath of the Judge's operation.

His recovery takes place during the period leading up to Mardi Gras, and throughout the chapters, the reader is well aware of the contrast between the revelry outside and the somberness inside the hospital.

The Judge, the optimist, is failing and his failing appears to be somewhat willful. That is certainly the impression that Fay, who wants to join the party outside, has. This part of the book culminates with Fay attacking her husband in his hospital bed. While waiting to see what happens - both to the Judge and to Fay - we are also treated to a family straight out of Southern caricature but one with whom Fay feels a kinship, while Laurel does not. Chapter 4 closes with the Judge's death and with Laurel and Fay returning his body, by train, to Mississippi.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Hello and welcome

The goal of this blog? To read the Pulitzer Prize winning novels since the year of my birth, 1973. I am choosing to blog because, the older I get, the less likely I am to retain information if I don’t discuss what I am reading. This will give me a chance to discuss my observations of these works.


If you’d like to join, the list of books are, as follows:

Pulitzer - Fiction
1973 The Optimists Daughter by Eudora Welty (Random)
1974 (No Award)
1975 The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (McKay)
1976 Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (Viking)
1977 (No Award)
1978 Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson (Atlantic Monthly Press)
1979 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (Knopf)
1980 The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (Little, Brown)
1981 A Confederacy of Dunces by the late John Kennedy Toole (a posthumous publication) (Louisiana State U. Press)
1982 Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike (Knopf), the latest novel in a memorable sequence
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Harcourt Brace)
1984 Ironweed by William Kennedy (Viking)
1985 Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie (Random House)
1986 Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster)
1987 A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (Alfred A. Knopf)
1988 Beloved by Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf)
1989 Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf)
1990 The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
1991 Rabbit At Rest by John Updike (Alfred A. Knopf)
1992 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf)
1993 A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (Henry Holt)
1994 The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (Charles Scribner's Sons)
1995 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (Viking)
1996 Independence Day by Richard Ford (Alfred A. Knopf)
1997 Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (Crown)
1998 American Pastoral by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin)
1999 The Hours by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
2000 Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin)
2001 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (Random House)
2002 Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Alfred A. Knopf)
2003 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
2004 The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Amistad/ HarperCollins)
2005 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
2006 March by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
2007 The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)

There will not be any set schedule for the readings. I will be reading and posting as I go along. But you are certainly welcome to comment on any and all of these books.

Welcome and enjoy!