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How to Read Eudora
Welty
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by Hunter Cole
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Associate Director and Managing Editor, University
Press of Mississippi
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Originally published 24 July 2001 in the Clarion-Ledger,
Jackson, MS.
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Reprinted with permission of the author.
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| Scared of Eudora's books? Want
to give them a try but are not really a serious reader? Here's some advice.
If you're a first-timer wanting to read Eudora Welty but are intimidated,
don't fret. Think instead that your encounter with her stories is going
to be like a pleasurable meeting with her. Ease into it. Wonder awaits you.
You've certainly seen her on television and heard her in interviews. Maybe
you saw her once or twice up close. Like Eudora herself, her books are approachable,
lovable. You have heard her soft, melodious voice, the kind that you wish
all Southerners really had. Listen for this voice in her work as you spend
some time with it. |
| Don't stereotype her
work Here's more advice: Read a Welty story without any attempt to stereotype it by locking it into down-home country or into some personal-identity bias, although she is writing about Mississippians, many times about the poor and the isolated. Moreover, read without thinking of Eudora as a refined, genteel lady. Although she had all the graces the best of us envy, she had a mischievous streak and a sparkling wit. Watch for the humor to flash, even in the midst of tragedy. It's there in the text. Subtle or overt, it can be just as much present as it was when you heard your grandparents recounting family lore. They didn't divulge everything. They expected you to listen, and they let you fish out the story's secrets with your imagination. Eudora's revelations, just like life's, are subtle and a little bit secret. Indeed, a story by Eudora Welty is going to impart something to your mind. Seize it. |
| And especially remember this:
If you want to know what makes Eudora Welty tick, you must try her books.
In fact, you can arrange the most intimate of encounters with any writer within
the pages of his or her works. If it's a close encounter you're after, you
probably can't get any closer to Eudora than to know her by way of her fiction.
She put her heart and soul into writing. She declared writing to be hard
work, but she loved it. The book is where you'll be engaged with her essence.
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| Is it too complex? If the story you are attempting is turning out to be too complex for you at the first try, slow down. You're not perusing the newspaper. Reread. Eudora loved words and cared how to use them. Relish them. Watch for her guiding words and the subtle portrayal of action and characters. Read the story once to find out what happens and to whom it is happening. Read it again to perceive the sophistication of its telling. Eudora was one of America's great writers. Her objective was to create and share experience. She is revealing something. She spent much time polishing and making the story shine, sing, reveal. So go slow and watch the reward come to you. Repair to a quiet, accommodating place. Then reread and relish what's being told. |
| Where to start? Why with Welty's old chestnut “Why I Live at the P. O.” And if you think, just because the first word in this story is "I," that Eudora herself lived in the post office, go back to zero and start over. You're really in need of concentration. Eudora is the author, not the speaker in the story. Notice how the speaker, who has moved to the post office because she has had a falling out with her lay-about family, draws all importance to herself. We begin to chuckle at her as well as with her. Note too how she describes one by one each member of the family and justifies how her sister turned every single one of them against her. One by one they take revenge, and as the silly action builds, the cross-dressing uncle tosses a string of firecrackers into the narrator's bedroom. This boom is the climax. Then she begins to turn on each individual by reclaiming her possessions and marching out. So she takes her spot in the tiny post office, her new home. Eudora is merrily recounting a family fuss. |
| Read all the stories in A
Curtain of Green and Other Stories. Don't speed-read them. Remember
to relish every word. Next, proceed to The Wide Net and Other Stories.
Work your way upward to The Golden Apples and Other Stories. Here
you will meet Eudora's imagination and your own experiences in exuberant
interplay. Two of the stories —— “Moon Lake” and “June Recital” —— are securely
among the best stories written in the 20th century. When you are well into
the spirit of things, read Losing Battles, Eudora's longest novel,
the one that took her longest to write. It is amazingly told, almost completely
in dialogue. As with any challenging book, this one is best approached as
you seat yourself in a comfortable chair beside a good lamp. |
| Check her photographs I think it an exhilarating exercise to look at the photographs Eudora Welty took and to see how their subjects reflect some of the elements of the stories. Look at her pictures of people of the 1930s——the blacks and the whites. You'll meet up with their types in these first two books. They're ordinary looking but very extraordinary human beings. |
| Look especially at the photograph
A Woman of the Thirties. If ever you wanted to witness an author's
compassion, you can find it in this photograph. If Eudora's words are missing
you, this image will deliver. Look closely. Pay attention. What's happening?
This tragic, valiant woman arouses the photographer's admiration, reveals
an entire life in her face and posture, makes the viewer perceive a tragic
plight. Eudora is not exploiting the woman's dire circumstance. She's exalting
her. That's real compassion. |
| Eudora is the best. She's not
some tale-teller on the front porch, although that's reported to be the source
of many a Southern story. She is recounting by narrative, but she is an
artist. An artist is one who designs and crafts his or her work. Get in
touch with this part of Eudora. Get to know her art. She is worth your time,
your appreciation. |
| Once I heard a complaining student
tell Eudora he disliked modern poetry because it was hard. She rolled her
eyes, frowned, and then replied, "Give it time. It will come. It's worth
it." Then she added, as an afterthought, "After all, you'll have gained a
poem." |
| If you're afraid that you'll
find Eudora's stories hard, give them a chance. Again, go slow. Relish.
Savor. Wonder. You'll have gained a world. |