#392 Circe- Eudora Welty

#392 Circe- Eudora Welty

When I started this blog I new that I would come across some authors that would floor me right away, and I knew that I would come across some that I just wouldn’t connect with. Henry Dumas, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rebecca Makkai are all authors I never read before this blog and are now among my favorites. Unfortunately, Eudora Welty falls in the latter category.

Perhaps it’s the old fashioned prose or the outdated sentiments, or it could be a thousand different things, but none of the Welty stories I read struck me on a personal level. I recognize her place in history and her importance to American letters and literature, but I am not trying to create a list of stories for any academic purpose. I just want to read stories that inspire me and make me want to go out and read more.

So this will be the last story of Welty I read. I know that chances are that I read the wrong stories. I made a promise that I wouldn’t “research” authors before reading them. That is I wouldn’t try to find their most popular works and start from there…I would just pick up a book and start reading. If I liked it, I’d read some more.

So, on to something else!

Notable Passage: “That moment of transformation—only the Gods really like it! Men and beasts almost never take in enough of the wonder to justify the trouble.”

Rating: 6-5-4-5 Total= 20

#371 The Purple Hat- Eudora Welty

#371 The Purple Hat- Eudora Welty

It’s a rainy day in New Orleans, men sit in a dark bar:

“Beyond the open door the rain fell, the heavy color of the sea, in air where sunlight was still suspended. Its watery reflection lighted the room, as a room might have lighted a mousehole.”

As the slow scene unfolds, a fat man tells a story about the woman in a purple hat. Everyday at five o’clock she can be seen at the Palace of Pleasure, a gambling hall. There she meets a young man and stays till midnight—this has happened everyday for the last thirty years.

The fat man tells his story as the bartender dismally looks on. She is a ghost, the fat man believes, as he himself has seen her murdered twice! When the clock strikes five, a young man listening at the end of the bar takes up and leaves—probably to go search for the lady in the purple hat. “New Orleans…is the birthplace of ready-made victims.”

Rating: 7-6-6-6 Total= 25

#358 The Whistle- Eudora Welty

#358 The Whistle- Eudora Welty

Sara and Jason Morton were in a cold marriage; not loveless or resentful, juts cold and growing darker by the years. “The darkness was thin, like some sleazy dress that has been worn and worn for many winters and always lets the cold through to the bones.”

As they lie in their cold bed at night, thinking about warmer times, the town whistle blows. It’s a whistle that warns the town about the coming freeze. Like John Donne’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” (or Hemmingway’s if you prefer…not Metallica’s though, heh) the couple listens and waits for their own end.

“Every night they lay trembling with cold, but no more communicative in their misery than a pair of window shutters beaten by a storm.”

This is the first Welty story of the batch I truly enjoyed. Perhaps it’s the lack of dialogue, which I have found trouble connecting with in her other stories. The descriptive writing here is pretty spectacular, and the mood like something out of a Chekhov story.

Rating: 9-7-8-8 Total= 32

#328 The Key- Eudora Welty

#328 The Key- Eudora Welty

Albert and Ellie are in train station waiting to travel to Niagara Falls. It is a long awaited wedding trip they have worked hard and saved for. Ellie is skeptical that this trip will change what’s wrong with their marriage.

Albert is “too shy for this world.” “He looked homemade, as though his wife had self-consciously knitted or somehow contrived a husband when she sat alone at night.”

Sitting in the station, lost in his shyness, a key suddenly slip on the floor into his vision. Most of the rest of the passengers witnessed the key being dropped by another man, but not Albert. He saw it as a sign, a way to change his life.

“Now you can stop being ashamed of me, for being so cautious and slow all my life, for taking my own time…You can take hope. Because it was I who found the key.”

The Key was happiness, a change for the better, and it was all his. Ellie, at first liked the change, but then resented it, seeing Albert’s love of happiness as a challenge to her, as if she herself wasn’t enough for Albert. To her, Albert’s happiness was selfish unless she also possessed it:

“Happiness…is something that appears to you suddenly, that it is meant for you, a thing for which you reach for and pick up and hide at your breast, a shiny thing that reminds you of something alive and leaping.”

Rating: 7-7-7-6 Total= 27

#307 The Petrified Man- Eudora Welty

#307 The Petrified Man- Eudora Welty

We are in a southern beauty salon. The conversations are rife with rumors, gossip and intrigue, perhaps even scandal.

I don’t know. These old Welty stories aren’t doing much for me. It’s mostly dialogue, an outdated style, and nothing resembling character development. I’m sure for what they were, they offered entertainment value, but for me, surrounded by stories with deeper meaning and richer writing, these are just things to read to acknowledge an important writer. Perhaps that’ll change with the next few.

Rating: 7-5-5-4 Total= 21

#286 A Piece of News- Eudora Welty

Rosy Fisher reads a small blub in the paper:

“Mrs. Ruby Fisher had the misfortune to be shot in the leg by her husband this week.”

Funny thing is though, she doesn’t remember being shot, nor does her husband and there is no evidence of any shooting. So, why does the paper say she was shot? Well that’s the twist.

Somehow this story reminds me of a country song about a cold-hearted man and no good cheatin’ wife. That’s all I got.

Notable Passage: “And at moments when the fire stirred, and tumbled in the grate, she would tremble, and her hand would start out as if in impatience or despair.”

Rating: 7-7-6-6 Total= 26