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Optimist's Daughter
  
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Optimist's Daughter (Paperback)

by Eudora Welty (Author) "A NURSE held the door open for them ..." (more)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback
  • Publisher: William a Thomas Braille; Braille edition (Feb 1991)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1569562938
  • ISBN-13: 978-1569562932
  • Product Dimensions: 29.2 x 29.2 x 6.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Product Description

The people of Mount Salus, Mississippi always felt good about Judge McKelva. He was a quiet, solid reassuring figure, just as a judge should be. Then, ten years after his first wife's death, he marries the frivolous young Wanda Fay. No-one can understand his action, not least his beloved daughter, Laurel, who finds it hard to accept the new bride. It is only some years later, when circumstance brings her back to her childhood home, that Laurel stirs old memories and comes to understand the peculiarities of her upbringing, and the true relationship between her parents and herself. The Optimist's Daughter is a reflective, poignant novel of independence and love, for which Eudora Welty, one of America's gretest contemporary Southern writers, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


About the Author

Eudora Welty was born in 1908 in Jackson, Mississippi which is where she still makes her home. One of America's most distinguished writers, she has published five novels and as many volumes of short stories. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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A NURSE held the door open for them. Read the first page
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4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Especially meaningful to people of a "certain age.", 20 Oct 2002
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: The Optimist's Daughter (Paperback)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, this moving study of memory and the progression of generations is still vibrant and relevant thirty years later. Not only does it show us the ripple effect that one person's passing has on loved ones, it also shows us the changes to society which occur as older generations pass away and new generations take their place.

Welty's concern here is with values--those traditional southern (U.S.) values learned by Laurel, the daughter of a Mississippi judge, from her parents; those learned by her parents from their parents; those imparted by the town she grew up in and the people who lived there; and those which Laurel has absorbed from her life as an artist in Chicago. In her values she is in direct contrast with Fay, the judge's young second wife, a crass and selfish woman from Texas with a large, boisterous, and uneducated family--a woman whose only desire is to come out a winner. When the judge dies, Laurel returns temporarily to her old room in the family home, which, Fay takes great pains to remind her, now belongs to Fay. There, surrounded by family belongings, she is assailed by memories of her childhood, her mother, her mother's final illness, and her relationship with her father. Her pre-occupation with the past is in direct contrast with Fay's concern with the present and her future--these women clearly belong to different worlds, and only Laurel is capable of change or adaptation.

Welty's ear for dialogue is unerring. She reveals character, class, and education in her syntax and choice of vocabulary and creates conflicts from the smallest of details--a misunderstood word, an imagined slight, a presumption. The conflict is leavened by humor in many places, some of it dark, especially when Fay's "no 'count" family arrives at the funeral. The characters themselves lack subtlety, however, and the symbolism is obvious--birds and flowers are constant motifs, and in the final scene, a handmade breadboard assumes meanings for Laurel well beyond what one would expect for such a simple item. For those of us who have lived through the death of parents and the disposal of a family home, this novel has a resonance rare in modern fiction, one which transcends the period in which it was written and the Deep South (U.S.) location in which it is set. Mary Whipple

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Grief and love, 4 Feb 2008
By E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Optimist's Daughter (Virago modern classics) (Paperback)
Like love, grief is ultimately something that we must all go through alone. There can be people who help, but our emotional journeys are ours alone.

And that is the heart of "The Optimist's Daughter," a dark, quiet little novel set in the mid-20th century South. Eudora Welty explores a difficult, emotionally wringing topic -- one woman losing the last loved one she had, and the struggle to come to terms with the many people she's lost.

Elderly but healthy Judge McKelva goes in for an eye operation, but seems strangely lethargic afterwards. His daughter Laurel -- who has been away for several years -- is concerned as her father continues to decline, especially since his flaky second wife Fay is treating him badly, and even has to be physically restrained by a nurse. Then the judge dies.

And Laurel finds herself in her old family home, trying to deal with Fay, her weird family, and the many well-meaning-but-dense friends that McKelva had over the years. But when the house is empty and she is alone, Laurel looks back on her life -- her all-too-brief marriage to a loving man, her mother's horrible death, and her father's remarriage -- and learns how to feel again.

Few books that I've read really handle the subject of grief -- usually people hug, cry, and get over it except for a few pages every now and then, when there is a mention of the Dearly Departed.

But not many authors can really get to the wrenching, lonely core of grief and loss, and how it can set us free, or lock our emotions and throw away the key. And that is basically what "The Optimist's Daughter" is all about -- McKelva's illness and death are a prelude to Laurel's soul-searching, and the exploration of how she handles her grief.

Welty wraps the slow, gradual storyline (which takes only a few days) in warm, colourful prose ("Sienna-bright leaves and thorns like spurts of matchflame had pierced through..."). She does have a tendency to let the dialogue from various people ramble, but often that rambling makes some very sharp points about loss, such as how the well-meaning often tell white lies about the dead, or ignore their dying wishes.

Laurel is kind of a nonentity for the first half of the book -- she's all locked up in herself, and we don't know much about her. But then Welty paints the devastating pain and guilt that she's been feeling, and shows how you have to let go of the past in order to live the future. Quite a contrast to the childish, putrescent Fay, whose rallying cry is always "What about ME?" and who accuses her dying husband of ruining her birthday.

"The Optimist's Daughter" is only optimistic as it ends -- up until then, it's a beautifully painful look at love, loss, and grief. A magnificent story, if a rather uncomfortable one.
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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good service, very resonably priced, 11 Jul 2009
By C. Ostrer "snow" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Optimist's Daughter (Virago modern classics) (Paperback)
I received this book today, very carefully packaged, very good condition. Excellent price. One thing, I wish everyone would use the plain cardboard book envelopes and less plastic, for recycling issues. Thank you
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