I copied each link from Youtube and pasted them below into their reading schedule from this year. Hopefully each of those will work, even if you have to cut and paste. (The info about joining the ongoing, online Welty bookclub is at the bottom.) Thanks for following up, Andy
Our next novel is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, beginning in May. We will send the reading schedule and Zoom link within the next few weeks. If you know people who might be interested in joining us, please have them email info@eudoraweltyhouse.com to be added to this email list.
Thank you again for being part of the Welty at Home Book Club!
Is Laurel perhaps realistic when she burns her mother's papers & leaves the bread board? The path of her life has already taken her in a direction that is far from home. It does not seem the removal from home is all of her own making but she is already removed from home in a way that is irrevocable. Reading about such rootedness to place is fascinating as for generations my own family has moved across the country & back. I could never point to a hometown nor could my family for about 5 generations.
I realize this probably won't come up in the Q&A Episode, but a few questions are on my mind. Why does Becky say, "You could have saved your mother's life. But you stood by and wouldn't intervene. I despair for you." Is it just the fear and despair as her mind is going, the paranoia that people are taking advantage of her instead of helping her? Or are we supposed to read more into it? Another question is just speculation. Do the Judge and Becky have a happy marriage? Does Laurel wish she could emulate them and their memories together? I can't quite picture a man choosing Fay after having a Becky unless the portrait we see in Laurel's mind is not quite true of Becky.
Is going home ever the same after you leave, or after an event like those in the book? Is it because home is not the same, or you are not the same, or both? Passage on pg. 112: "Once you leave after this, you'll always come back as a visitor." Mrs. Pease warned Laurel. "Feel free, of course - but it was always my opinion that people don't really want visitors."
Rabia asks about the recurring mention of time and clocks in the discussion of parts one and two. I too am curious about what you think of these recurrences.
Not far from the end, when Laura wanted her father and mother near her to share in her grief “as she had been the sharer of theirs,” we find what may have been Laurel’s thoughts (free indirect style?):
“As he lay unmoving in the hospital he had concentrated utterly on time passing, indeed he had. But which way had it been going for him? When he could no longer get up and encourage it, push it forward, had it turned on him, started moving back the other way?”
Many mysterious allusions to Time, clocks, in the book.
Hi beloved hosts, I was wondering if you could tackle this one particular passage on page 152:
Fay had once at least called Becky "my rival." Laurel thought: But the rivalry doesn't lie where Fay thinks. It's not between the living and the dead, between the old wife and the new; it's between too much love and too little. There is no rivalry as bitter; Laurel had seen its work.
Does that mean that Becky was the one who loved the Judge too much and Fay had loved him too little? Or does it mean something greater. Does it mean that Becky knew how to truly love not just her husband, but the whole of life? She loved her father, mother, brothers. (Contrast with Fay's family.) She loved baking bread. It seems she loved Phil. She loved gardens. Her love language seemed to be "acts of service" while Fay isn't really seen as serving anyone other than herself. And yet... Becky does not die in peace. I feel like she died in defeat... did the Judge have too little love? How does optimism keep one from truly loving someone?
I was also pondering what was meant by that quote, since the two women switch places in the first two pairs (living/dead becomes old/new), so it wasn't super clear how they would end up in the last one.
From an Amazon review of the letters of Welty and William Maxwell:
Perhaps we'll be captivated by correspondence from the late 1960s, in which Welty considered titles other than "The Optimist's Daughter" for the story that ran in The New Yorker in March 1969 (and, in novel form, won the Pulitzer Prize four years later). On this matter, for instance, Maxwell responded: "I am still partial to `The Optimist's Daughter', because, by its ironic tone, it suggests a certain distance between the writer and the woman in the story, and because it also, again by its irony, suggests, matches, somehow, the full horror of the subject matter....Also, I like titles that don't state the idea of the thing but are more oblique."
I wonder what Maxwell means by "the full horror of the subject matter"? Horror seems a strong word for Fay's getting the house. Is there something more gothic going on?
I think that the horror is that we, as Americans especially, think of optimism almost like a virtue. It is not in the way it plays out in this novel. Optimism, thinking things will work out always no matter what, is harmful because bad things do happen. Suffering is not only a part of life, it is an essential part of what it means to be human. That is why Christ came down in the form of a man. He suffered to bear our sins. The horror is that the Judge's optimism is what kept him from seeing his wife in her suffering. In not recognizing it, he could not bear it with her so when she talks of "betrayal" it is because he has in essence abandoned her in her suffering. This is the horror. And that is also the irony. In wanting to only see the bright side, one can turn himself away from those who are in the dark with no choice but to face pain and death.
And Fay is the Judge taken to the extreme. Also, abandoning her spouse while he is in the process of dying, even attacking him. Not to murder him but to scare him into living. As if he had a choice.
As soon as I read the phrase "its ironic tone" I could hear/see/feel it! Also, could the subject matter (and its horror) be death itself? And not only death, but also dying?
In the podcast, you pointed out that we're not exactly sure if Laurel is interpreting things correctly. Is Adele potentially our voice of reason and true assessment? If so, what do we make of her claim that the townspeople behaved just as poorly as the Chisoms at the funeral?
In this story does "optimistic" really mean "avoidant"? The Judge seems to never really come to terms with Becky's illness. "That was when he started, of course, being what he scowlingly called an optimist.... He loved his wife. Whatever she did that she couldn't help doing was all right."
Broad question ... Does learning that plot elements and characters bear degrees of resemblance to a novelist's life in any way diminish aspects of that novel for readers or the creative accomplishment of that novel? I lean toward no but I am not sure I am convincing myself entirely. I've watched recorded installments of a Eudora-Welty-Home-and-Museum-originated book group from 2/2023 on Youtube wherein an old friend of hers and scholar of her work (Dr. Suzanne Marrs) leads the group through a discussion of each chapter of The Optimist's Daughter. The more and more she shares how closely some aspects of The Optimist's Daughter reflect events from Welty's life, the more I've been asking myself. (And if the author's great friend and scholar loves the novel despite knowing the direct correlations...) I'm not suggesting that this turns a great novel into one without greatness or that it diminishes the quality of the prose. Does it do the reader any good to learn these sorts of things or does it distract or take us out of the experience in a way? Does it depend on the degree or the circumstances? Do I need to just relax? : ) I can certainly respect that writing a grief memoir could be too raw or close whereas a novel a slight distance removed on the same themes could be therapeutic. Anyway, just taking my first leap into the Substack pool.
Any chance for a link to that discussion on youtube? Thanks.
As for your question, personally I am still with the "New Critics," who maintained that a work must stand on its own and be internally coherent. (Which is why I am drawn to "close reads.") Biography and history might add something of interest, of course, but the text itself is what matters most. So finding out that a writer used or did not use autobiographical detail would not matter to me, or at least it should not.
Yes. I posted a copy of the abominable-looking link below but it does re-direct to installment #1. I found it difficult to locate by searching on YouTube. Hopefully you can find the other 7 recordings on Optimist's Daughter spring-boarding from this one. If not, I can share links individually. They are currently reading To The Lighthouse and have done Sound and the Fury, Pride and Prejudice, I believe as well. I absolutely appreciate your comments on my question.
Hi, I so appreciate you listing the link. I can't seem to find the other recordings. Could you redirect me so I can find the next recordings. So good! thanks
Welcome back! Sure, another person gave us a link to a book club discussion at the Eudora Welty house about the Optimist's Daughter, but I can't find the link to the six sessions.
I think my response with the links ended up in the ‘main’ feed (still figuring out Substack). Let me know if you weren’t able to see what you were looking for. Andy
I realize there have already been numerous questions about the symbolism of birds in this novel, but I have yet one more. In Book 3, at the very end of the first chapter/subsection, Laurel and Adele observe the cardinals flying directly at the “bird-frighteners” one at a time, over and over. Adele remarks, “Oh, it’s a game, isn’t it, nothing but a game!” I’m pretty sure she isn’t just talking about cardinals here, and I have my ideas about what the failure of the bird-frighteners to frighten means, as well as what the game Adele refers to is, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this passage.
When one is too optimistic they are blind to the real possibilities that things won't turn out happily. It is lying to oneself. And to those around you.
Also, the references to Milton also evoke blindness. His daughters had transcribed Paradise Lost when he had gone blind. It was said that they were his hands.
And another question. What are we to make of the fact that the Judge and Becky both died of (or with) eye ailments? And how should we interpret Becky's bitterness to the Judge at the end of her life? Finally, what does Laurel mean when she tells Fay that Becky predicted her?
I was wondering about that line, too. We don't get any indication other than that section that Becky predicted Fay or expected her husband to remarry or be unfaithful to her memory.
Can you please talk about Ms. Adel? I find it significant that she insists Laurel keep that little boat that represents her parents' love, and is the one not judging Fay, and is the teacher of the children. She gives me hope, but maybe I'm too optimistic?
The boat is like Noah's ark. There are lots of references to flood. But another Genesis story here is the Fall...
Adele Courtland is Dr. Courtland's sister. She and her brother are in a way catalysts for Laurel's knowledge. There is a lot of Eden imagery as well with the fig tree, Becky being a gardener, etc. Courtland, if spelled differently is a variety of apple.
That was my question, too. The book ends with the image of the children waving, and we have Fay's chilling prediction that she is the future. However, does the fact that Miss Adele is their teacher counterbalance the influence of Fay and her ilk on the next generation?
I just read Welty's 1942 short story from the Atlantic Monthly, "Livvie is Back." It tells the story of Livvie, a black girl who is married at 16 to Solomon, a successful farmer of 60 who has built himself in the lonely woods a three room house that functions as a pyramid to his own respectability. After a while, Solomon begins to weaken and fade. He takes to his bed and mostly sleeps. Livvie is the model of a dutiful wife. She prepares meals for him, which he does not eat. Still, she tries. Although Solomon has treated her well, he has kept her virtually a prisoner. And when the inevitable younger man shows up (when Livvie is 24), Solomon wakes up and acknowledges his sin in taking Livvie to live in isolation.
There are parallels with Fay and the Judge. Livvie in effect asks with Robert Burns, "What Can A Young Lassie Do Wi' An Auld Man?" There is no pleasing the moribund Solomon. Fay learns that there is no pleasure with the judge. Livvie wants to be a good wife (as she understands it) and Fay wants a good marriage (as she understands it). The double-bind is that in "Livvie" we are saddened by her dutifulness. (Even though we probably do not root for a union with the young man.) And we are outraged by Fay's lack of dutifulness. So we do not approve of either option. Fay is too selfish. Livvie is too obedient. We cannot advise Fay to be like Livvie, can we? Then what is left, given the bad bargain the judge has made with her? Perhaps Fay is a woman more sinned against than sinning?
Although you didn't include my original post, I am going to repeat the question... why was Fay not charged for homicide in the death of the judge. She brutally mistreated him when he was supposed to be immobilized after eye surgery; she would have denied him surgery if given the opportunity.
Fay says she wanted to scare the Judge into living. By letter of the law maybe it was manslaughter. It was not murder. From the text it seems that she wanted to "scare him into living" because she wanted him to pay attention to her. That means that she wanted him alive, but not so they could have a functioning sacramental marriage but because she was selfish and wanted an audience for the Theater of Fay.
I think Welty's concern was not on the criminal nature of Fay's actions. I think she was resigned to the Fays of the world getting off Scott free which they often do.
That's not homicide. He had the surgery despite Fay's objection. Fay did assault him, and she could be charged with that, but he was clearly dying after the surgery. There is nothing in the story that suggests that Fay caused his death.
1) Why is Fay such a tiny person when her mother and sister are so large? Is it just that their overbearing nature/nurture has shrunk Fay’s humanity?
2) Do you think Welty gives any clues as to how Laurel’s life will change, if at all, when she returns to Chicago as a “free bird”? It is almost as if she has just reached adulthood after processing the tragedy of loss in Father, Mother and Husband. She seems so bleakly alone. Do you think Welty gives us hope for new relationships in her life?
Personal note: this story is so much like my mother's family it is heart-wrenching. I keep thinking about the complexity of what happens when your childhood memories are tarnished - like that bread board was - by revealing things about them you didn't know, or by things just changing. I think about how after my grandfather died in Enfield, NC (he was the town doctor, much like the judge) and they had cleaned out the house, my mom refused to go back to Enfield anymore. She doesn't want to walk through the pines as she did with me, or show my children where she rode horses and the pharmacy that was the shopfront of where she worked helping her dad because she says it makes her too sad. I think that has something to do with why Laurel had to leave that tarnished bread board. The memory is better if you don't see today's reality.
Anyway, I will make this into a question. I didn't realize how Southern this whole feeling was until now. I think it has something to do with the land and the communities that used to be so wonderful...but it also has to do with the fact that those communities existed so affluently in part because of slavery and segregation. And if you're a child, you just want to remember the beauty of it all, but if you have to really think about it, you see the complexity that comes in with the shame of this past. Laurel moves forward by leaving it all and preserving the memory, but for those of us who still live and breath down here and and clutch a very dusty set of the Complete Works of Shakespeare their grandfathers left them, does this book offer any suggestions on how to move forward?
“The memory is better if you don’t see todays reality”. I believe that answers the question as to why she left it all to go back to Chicago!
I have cherished memories from the fields and woods I grew up in. My family has all split and moved away and the land was sold. Just recently curiosity got the best of me and I used Google Earth to look at our old place, and I cried a little bit, seeing they had logged a majority of the old woods. And I can see now where my memories are now too painful sometimes because the reality has tarnished them.
Memories are optimistic, aren’t they? We have a sense that they are always there, perhaps a sense of of returning, and when reality slaps us, it creates a great grief of sorts.
Was Adele in love with the judge? There are definitely hints that she’s lived her life with unrequited love for him. Perhaps she hoped to marry him when they were young, and again after Becky’s death? Or am I completely misinterpreted that?
I’m wondering about Major Bullock and his role as essentially the only man who plays a part in the story. Is he just a silly man or are his feelings of sympathy toward Fay more insightful than we give credit for? I’m leaning toward silly myself because nothing compels me to feel any sympathy for Fay.
I couldn't get a solid grasp on Laurel's relationship to her father. On page 144, she thinks, "neither of us saved our fathers". Did her relationship to her father suffer when she married her husband? When her mother died? Interested in your alls thoughts.
I got the impression there was some history about the eye doctor and Becky's death. Why does he not want to do the operation on the judge? Did he mess up before? Then why does the judge insist that he has full confidence in the doctor? I am not sure about any of this, yet I do get the feeling that Welty is hinting at something in the past that may or may not matter in the present. Any of this ring any bells?
Totally baffled by this as well. Courtland says, "I stood over what happened to your mother."
"I was there too. You know nobody could blame you, or imagine how you could have prevented anything--"
"If we'd known then what we know now. The eye was just a part of it," he said. "With your mother."
So I guess they lacked either medical or situational knowledge at the time? Becky got spots on her hands as her illness progressed (no idea what this suggests... skin cancer?) But I really failed to see the link between an eye operation triggering some larger health problem that went on to include a stroke. I guess it doesn't matter since Welty doesn't explain, but I'm way too literal to be OK with that!
Judge McKelva helped put Dr. Courtland through medical school. I wonder if there is a "sunk cost" bias going on here. But aside from that, the Courtlands were long time neighbors of the McKelvas. I think he felt bad for them because the mother of Adele and Dr. Nate would have to drink the blue skimmed milk because the mother had sold the cream so that family would have money.
’m curious still about the attraction Fay had for Judge McKelva, and indeed that she seems to have for men in general. I know we get some hints about what would attract someone like the Judge to her, but I still don’t feel like I was given “good enough” reasons for it. Major Bullock (I hope that’s the right name!) also seemed to feel some sort of fascination/attraction/pity for her, while every woman in the novel can’t stand her. What is it about Fay that attracts men such that they don’t see the repellant qualities that the women around them dislike about her? In addition, do the women dislike her for the “right reasons” (such as her narrowness of soul) vs “wrong reasons” (jealousy, class prejudice, dislike of her simply because she’s a replacement)?
I feel like the "helpless child" angle was hinted at some point. I forget the page but it was the scene during the funeral where Major Bullock keeps trying to engage Fay. This is a trait that I've seen with other characters in other novels: Fay is so alarmingly inept that men can't help but want to protect her and capable women can't help but despise her.
What is the significance of birds throughout the novel? Are they meant to mirror the emotional state of the characters (as weather would in a gothic novel) or is there some deeper significance? I'm thinking specifically of (1) the mockingbird while the bridesmaids are giving their review of the funeral (page 110), (2) The cardinals attacking Becky's bird frighteners while the ladies are gossiping about Fay (page 117 ish), and (3) the bird that flits throughout the house during Laurel's cleaning of the house (page 132 ish). It seems like the author never explicitly describes what the characters are feeling, especially Laurel whose perspective we're looking out from and who we would expect to have a lot of complicated emotions during this time. Are we supposed to infer her emotions from the birds and, if so, what's the significance of birds specifically as an emotional outlet?
In poetry, birds are often metaphors for the soul. They are also harbingers and messengers. But I think that the key is also in the constant references to The Great Flood and the fact that Adele has this boat she wants to give to Laurel to remind her of her parents' love. There are references to pigeons (I will write a bit later on this)... and another word for pigeon is rock dove. A dove was sent out by Noah to find proof of land, and it brought back an olive branch. Another type of branch is a laurel that is often used to symbolize victory. Laurel ends up triumphant after the great flood of grief she is finally able to feel. It cleanses her of guilt. She is allowed to see Fay for what she is, and she realizes what really matters to her.
I feel like the bird theme hinges on the story of Laurel’s grandma’s pigeons (part 3), hinted at just before with her the 26 pigeonholes of her mothers desk, where they become her pets. I was hoping this would be discussed in the previous podcast, because I’m not really sure what this is about other than it seemed like a traumatizing event for Laurel.
I found this novel extremely tightly written; knowing it was a former short story expanded into novel length helped sort it in my mind. But I found the beginning of part 3 nearly superfluous to the rest of the novel. Am I missing something deeper in the chatter of the women of their town surrounding Laurel for what feels like a lot of pages in this short of a book? (The other extended dialogue scene of Faye's family makes sense, but for some reason this part felt like an outlier.)
I have so many questions. I have read and listened to Part 4 over and over again. Here's a start: we don't know anything about Laurel except her relationships with her parents and husband. Nothing about her life in Chicago except that she is a fabric designer. We don't know if she has friends, whether she dates and thinks about marrying again, why she continued to live in Chicago after her husband's death. Why? We don't really know what she is returning to at the end of the book.
Sure!
I copied each link from Youtube and pasted them below into their reading schedule from this year. Hopefully each of those will work, even if you have to cut and paste. (The info about joining the ongoing, online Welty bookclub is at the bottom.) Thanks for following up, Andy
The Optimist's Daughter Recordings:
Week 1 – January 23: Background + Part One (883-910) RECORDING : https://youtu.be/_yF1FPEb3HI
Week 2 – January 30: Part Two (911-945) RECORDING:
https://youtu.be/gywH7714C_Y
Week 3 – February 6: Part Three (946-978) RECORDING:
https://youtu.be/ytVS9-LXmxs
Week 4 – February 13: Part Four (978-992) RECORDING:
https://youtu.be/rZk1FRxmyNg
Week 5 – *OFF Monday, February 20*
Week 6 – February 27: Discussion of the novel as a whole RECORDING:
https://youtu.be/jrCeZzg0jzU
Week 7 – March 6: The New Yorker version, Sections One & Two RECORDING:
https://youtu.be/4QD9OzhLikE
Week 8 – March 13: The New Yorker version, Sections Three & Four RECORDING:
https://youtu.be/VQDVPa3tcHI
Our next novel is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, beginning in May. We will send the reading schedule and Zoom link within the next few weeks. If you know people who might be interested in joining us, please have them email info@eudoraweltyhouse.com to be added to this email list.
Thank you again for being part of the Welty at Home Book Club!
Is Laurel perhaps realistic when she burns her mother's papers & leaves the bread board? The path of her life has already taken her in a direction that is far from home. It does not seem the removal from home is all of her own making but she is already removed from home in a way that is irrevocable. Reading about such rootedness to place is fascinating as for generations my own family has moved across the country & back. I could never point to a hometown nor could my family for about 5 generations.
I realize this probably won't come up in the Q&A Episode, but a few questions are on my mind. Why does Becky say, "You could have saved your mother's life. But you stood by and wouldn't intervene. I despair for you." Is it just the fear and despair as her mind is going, the paranoia that people are taking advantage of her instead of helping her? Or are we supposed to read more into it? Another question is just speculation. Do the Judge and Becky have a happy marriage? Does Laurel wish she could emulate them and their memories together? I can't quite picture a man choosing Fay after having a Becky unless the portrait we see in Laurel's mind is not quite true of Becky.
Is going home ever the same after you leave, or after an event like those in the book? Is it because home is not the same, or you are not the same, or both? Passage on pg. 112: "Once you leave after this, you'll always come back as a visitor." Mrs. Pease warned Laurel. "Feel free, of course - but it was always my opinion that people don't really want visitors."
Rabia asks about the recurring mention of time and clocks in the discussion of parts one and two. I too am curious about what you think of these recurrences.
Not far from the end, when Laura wanted her father and mother near her to share in her grief “as she had been the sharer of theirs,” we find what may have been Laurel’s thoughts (free indirect style?):
“As he lay unmoving in the hospital he had concentrated utterly on time passing, indeed he had. But which way had it been going for him? When he could no longer get up and encourage it, push it forward, had it turned on him, started moving back the other way?”
Many mysterious allusions to Time, clocks, in the book.
What is the significance of Judge McKelva's profession & title being what it was?
I can't help but think that there is some kind of play on the old adage: Justice is blind.
Doesn't make sense in context of the story, but isn't it kind of funny?
Hi beloved hosts, I was wondering if you could tackle this one particular passage on page 152:
Fay had once at least called Becky "my rival." Laurel thought: But the rivalry doesn't lie where Fay thinks. It's not between the living and the dead, between the old wife and the new; it's between too much love and too little. There is no rivalry as bitter; Laurel had seen its work.
Does that mean that Becky was the one who loved the Judge too much and Fay had loved him too little? Or does it mean something greater. Does it mean that Becky knew how to truly love not just her husband, but the whole of life? She loved her father, mother, brothers. (Contrast with Fay's family.) She loved baking bread. It seems she loved Phil. She loved gardens. Her love language seemed to be "acts of service" while Fay isn't really seen as serving anyone other than herself. And yet... Becky does not die in peace. I feel like she died in defeat... did the Judge have too little love? How does optimism keep one from truly loving someone?
I was also pondering what was meant by that quote, since the two women switch places in the first two pairs (living/dead becomes old/new), so it wasn't super clear how they would end up in the last one.
From an Amazon review of the letters of Welty and William Maxwell:
Perhaps we'll be captivated by correspondence from the late 1960s, in which Welty considered titles other than "The Optimist's Daughter" for the story that ran in The New Yorker in March 1969 (and, in novel form, won the Pulitzer Prize four years later). On this matter, for instance, Maxwell responded: "I am still partial to `The Optimist's Daughter', because, by its ironic tone, it suggests a certain distance between the writer and the woman in the story, and because it also, again by its irony, suggests, matches, somehow, the full horror of the subject matter....Also, I like titles that don't state the idea of the thing but are more oblique."
I wonder what Maxwell means by "the full horror of the subject matter"? Horror seems a strong word for Fay's getting the house. Is there something more gothic going on?
I think that the horror is that we, as Americans especially, think of optimism almost like a virtue. It is not in the way it plays out in this novel. Optimism, thinking things will work out always no matter what, is harmful because bad things do happen. Suffering is not only a part of life, it is an essential part of what it means to be human. That is why Christ came down in the form of a man. He suffered to bear our sins. The horror is that the Judge's optimism is what kept him from seeing his wife in her suffering. In not recognizing it, he could not bear it with her so when she talks of "betrayal" it is because he has in essence abandoned her in her suffering. This is the horror. And that is also the irony. In wanting to only see the bright side, one can turn himself away from those who are in the dark with no choice but to face pain and death.
And Fay is the Judge taken to the extreme. Also, abandoning her spouse while he is in the process of dying, even attacking him. Not to murder him but to scare him into living. As if he had a choice.
As soon as I read the phrase "its ironic tone" I could hear/see/feel it! Also, could the subject matter (and its horror) be death itself? And not only death, but also dying?
In the podcast, you pointed out that we're not exactly sure if Laurel is interpreting things correctly. Is Adele potentially our voice of reason and true assessment? If so, what do we make of her claim that the townspeople behaved just as poorly as the Chisoms at the funeral?
In this story does "optimistic" really mean "avoidant"? The Judge seems to never really come to terms with Becky's illness. "That was when he started, of course, being what he scowlingly called an optimist.... He loved his wife. Whatever she did that she couldn't help doing was all right."
Broad question ... Does learning that plot elements and characters bear degrees of resemblance to a novelist's life in any way diminish aspects of that novel for readers or the creative accomplishment of that novel? I lean toward no but I am not sure I am convincing myself entirely. I've watched recorded installments of a Eudora-Welty-Home-and-Museum-originated book group from 2/2023 on Youtube wherein an old friend of hers and scholar of her work (Dr. Suzanne Marrs) leads the group through a discussion of each chapter of The Optimist's Daughter. The more and more she shares how closely some aspects of The Optimist's Daughter reflect events from Welty's life, the more I've been asking myself. (And if the author's great friend and scholar loves the novel despite knowing the direct correlations...) I'm not suggesting that this turns a great novel into one without greatness or that it diminishes the quality of the prose. Does it do the reader any good to learn these sorts of things or does it distract or take us out of the experience in a way? Does it depend on the degree or the circumstances? Do I need to just relax? : ) I can certainly respect that writing a grief memoir could be too raw or close whereas a novel a slight distance removed on the same themes could be therapeutic. Anyway, just taking my first leap into the Substack pool.
Any chance for a link to that discussion on youtube? Thanks.
As for your question, personally I am still with the "New Critics," who maintained that a work must stand on its own and be internally coherent. (Which is why I am drawn to "close reads.") Biography and history might add something of interest, of course, but the text itself is what matters most. So finding out that a writer used or did not use autobiographical detail would not matter to me, or at least it should not.
Yes. I posted a copy of the abominable-looking link below but it does re-direct to installment #1. I found it difficult to locate by searching on YouTube. Hopefully you can find the other 7 recordings on Optimist's Daughter spring-boarding from this one. If not, I can share links individually. They are currently reading To The Lighthouse and have done Sound and the Fury, Pride and Prejudice, I believe as well. I absolutely appreciate your comments on my question.
https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001wpdxS0wTQC9kgdovb8uRyoFhK6aHYiF-9z1-Wa8OiUdIi_ch4_P6FLj0cISgHXkecscDiPf22gV4cotGxP2NDwW80kwg_I6kfRLsoyrLCNbeIugpNjFsl6MroyreMbxsyYMs-dG3v22ZpR7Vmf9tzVb3baN6ZtWeXQ4zdqqqQfP2nSTh2D07ig==&c=XhCzPjHrLjOWpk45M8FAopjoEfWyoSAoE9FIXJFzsFHqRVIebPeuXA==&ch=pAAs_05Fp5rxOtDL48u5f3WoGis6wxLjkH0lKraoQshytT5hcw4I_g==
Hi, I so appreciate you listing the link. I can't seem to find the other recordings. Could you redirect me so I can find the next recordings. So good! thanks
Sorry, can you clarify that you mean? Other recordings of what?
Welcome back! Sure, another person gave us a link to a book club discussion at the Eudora Welty house about the Optimist's Daughter, but I can't find the link to the six sessions.
I think my response with the links ended up in the ‘main’ feed (still figuring out Substack). Let me know if you weren’t able to see what you were looking for. Andy
Thank you. That link worked.
This one I grabbed from the youtube SHARE button: https://youtu.be/_yF1FPEb3HI
It seems to work too.
I realize there have already been numerous questions about the symbolism of birds in this novel, but I have yet one more. In Book 3, at the very end of the first chapter/subsection, Laurel and Adele observe the cardinals flying directly at the “bird-frighteners” one at a time, over and over. Adele remarks, “Oh, it’s a game, isn’t it, nothing but a game!” I’m pretty sure she isn’t just talking about cardinals here, and I have my ideas about what the failure of the bird-frighteners to frighten means, as well as what the game Adele refers to is, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this passage.
And I wonder what happens to Missouri. I can't picture her working for Fay or Fay keeping her on.
He was the same doctor that operated on Laurel's mother and that was a disaster, right? That's what I was reading into that situation.
Yes, it was Dr. Courtland
I think there must be some significance to blindness, the Judge's at least.
When one is too optimistic they are blind to the real possibilities that things won't turn out happily. It is lying to oneself. And to those around you.
Also, the references to Milton also evoke blindness. His daughters had transcribed Paradise Lost when he had gone blind. It was said that they were his hands.
Laurel's married name was Hand.
And another question. What are we to make of the fact that the Judge and Becky both died of (or with) eye ailments? And how should we interpret Becky's bitterness to the Judge at the end of her life? Finally, what does Laurel mean when she tells Fay that Becky predicted her?
I was wondering about that line, too. We don't get any indication other than that section that Becky predicted Fay or expected her husband to remarry or be unfaithful to her memory.
Can you please talk about Ms. Adel? I find it significant that she insists Laurel keep that little boat that represents her parents' love, and is the one not judging Fay, and is the teacher of the children. She gives me hope, but maybe I'm too optimistic?
The boat is like Noah's ark. There are lots of references to flood. But another Genesis story here is the Fall...
Adele Courtland is Dr. Courtland's sister. She and her brother are in a way catalysts for Laurel's knowledge. There is a lot of Eden imagery as well with the fig tree, Becky being a gardener, etc. Courtland, if spelled differently is a variety of apple.
That was my question, too. The book ends with the image of the children waving, and we have Fay's chilling prediction that she is the future. However, does the fact that Miss Adele is their teacher counterbalance the influence of Fay and her ilk on the next generation?
Is Fay an Inverse of Livvie?
I just read Welty's 1942 short story from the Atlantic Monthly, "Livvie is Back." It tells the story of Livvie, a black girl who is married at 16 to Solomon, a successful farmer of 60 who has built himself in the lonely woods a three room house that functions as a pyramid to his own respectability. After a while, Solomon begins to weaken and fade. He takes to his bed and mostly sleeps. Livvie is the model of a dutiful wife. She prepares meals for him, which he does not eat. Still, she tries. Although Solomon has treated her well, he has kept her virtually a prisoner. And when the inevitable younger man shows up (when Livvie is 24), Solomon wakes up and acknowledges his sin in taking Livvie to live in isolation.
There are parallels with Fay and the Judge. Livvie in effect asks with Robert Burns, "What Can A Young Lassie Do Wi' An Auld Man?" There is no pleasing the moribund Solomon. Fay learns that there is no pleasure with the judge. Livvie wants to be a good wife (as she understands it) and Fay wants a good marriage (as she understands it). The double-bind is that in "Livvie" we are saddened by her dutifulness. (Even though we probably do not root for a union with the young man.) And we are outraged by Fay's lack of dutifulness. So we do not approve of either option. Fay is too selfish. Livvie is too obedient. We cannot advise Fay to be like Livvie, can we? Then what is left, given the bad bargain the judge has made with her? Perhaps Fay is a woman more sinned against than sinning?
Although you didn't include my original post, I am going to repeat the question... why was Fay not charged for homicide in the death of the judge. She brutally mistreated him when he was supposed to be immobilized after eye surgery; she would have denied him surgery if given the opportunity.
Fay says she wanted to scare the Judge into living. By letter of the law maybe it was manslaughter. It was not murder. From the text it seems that she wanted to "scare him into living" because she wanted him to pay attention to her. That means that she wanted him alive, but not so they could have a functioning sacramental marriage but because she was selfish and wanted an audience for the Theater of Fay.
I think Welty's concern was not on the criminal nature of Fay's actions. I think she was resigned to the Fays of the world getting off Scott free which they often do.
That's not homicide. He had the surgery despite Fay's objection. Fay did assault him, and she could be charged with that, but he was clearly dying after the surgery. There is nothing in the story that suggests that Fay caused his death.
Curious to hear your thoughts on two points:
1) Why is Fay such a tiny person when her mother and sister are so large? Is it just that their overbearing nature/nurture has shrunk Fay’s humanity?
2) Do you think Welty gives any clues as to how Laurel’s life will change, if at all, when she returns to Chicago as a “free bird”? It is almost as if she has just reached adulthood after processing the tragedy of loss in Father, Mother and Husband. She seems so bleakly alone. Do you think Welty gives us hope for new relationships in her life?
just realized something - Fay is kind of bird-like in her figure. does that have something to do with why she's small?
Personal note: this story is so much like my mother's family it is heart-wrenching. I keep thinking about the complexity of what happens when your childhood memories are tarnished - like that bread board was - by revealing things about them you didn't know, or by things just changing. I think about how after my grandfather died in Enfield, NC (he was the town doctor, much like the judge) and they had cleaned out the house, my mom refused to go back to Enfield anymore. She doesn't want to walk through the pines as she did with me, or show my children where she rode horses and the pharmacy that was the shopfront of where she worked helping her dad because she says it makes her too sad. I think that has something to do with why Laurel had to leave that tarnished bread board. The memory is better if you don't see today's reality.
Anyway, I will make this into a question. I didn't realize how Southern this whole feeling was until now. I think it has something to do with the land and the communities that used to be so wonderful...but it also has to do with the fact that those communities existed so affluently in part because of slavery and segregation. And if you're a child, you just want to remember the beauty of it all, but if you have to really think about it, you see the complexity that comes in with the shame of this past. Laurel moves forward by leaving it all and preserving the memory, but for those of us who still live and breath down here and and clutch a very dusty set of the Complete Works of Shakespeare their grandfathers left them, does this book offer any suggestions on how to move forward?
Elizabeth, what a wonderful insight.
“The memory is better if you don’t see todays reality”. I believe that answers the question as to why she left it all to go back to Chicago!
I have cherished memories from the fields and woods I grew up in. My family has all split and moved away and the land was sold. Just recently curiosity got the best of me and I used Google Earth to look at our old place, and I cried a little bit, seeing they had logged a majority of the old woods. And I can see now where my memories are now too painful sometimes because the reality has tarnished them.
Memories are optimistic, aren’t they? We have a sense that they are always there, perhaps a sense of of returning, and when reality slaps us, it creates a great grief of sorts.
Love this idea that memories are optimistic or Canby...
I should have read through this and edited it- sorry!
Was Adele in love with the judge? There are definitely hints that she’s lived her life with unrequited love for him. Perhaps she hoped to marry him when they were young, and again after Becky’s death? Or am I completely misinterpreted that?
I’m wondering about Major Bullock and his role as essentially the only man who plays a part in the story. Is he just a silly man or are his feelings of sympathy toward Fay more insightful than we give credit for? I’m leaning toward silly myself because nothing compels me to feel any sympathy for Fay.
I couldn't get a solid grasp on Laurel's relationship to her father. On page 144, she thinks, "neither of us saved our fathers". Did her relationship to her father suffer when she married her husband? When her mother died? Interested in your alls thoughts.
I got the impression there was some history about the eye doctor and Becky's death. Why does he not want to do the operation on the judge? Did he mess up before? Then why does the judge insist that he has full confidence in the doctor? I am not sure about any of this, yet I do get the feeling that Welty is hinting at something in the past that may or may not matter in the present. Any of this ring any bells?
Totally baffled by this as well. Courtland says, "I stood over what happened to your mother."
"I was there too. You know nobody could blame you, or imagine how you could have prevented anything--"
"If we'd known then what we know now. The eye was just a part of it," he said. "With your mother."
So I guess they lacked either medical or situational knowledge at the time? Becky got spots on her hands as her illness progressed (no idea what this suggests... skin cancer?) But I really failed to see the link between an eye operation triggering some larger health problem that went on to include a stroke. I guess it doesn't matter since Welty doesn't explain, but I'm way too literal to be OK with that!
Judge McKelva helped put Dr. Courtland through medical school. I wonder if there is a "sunk cost" bias going on here. But aside from that, the Courtlands were long time neighbors of the McKelvas. I think he felt bad for them because the mother of Adele and Dr. Nate would have to drink the blue skimmed milk because the mother had sold the cream so that family would have money.
It's on page 120 in my book BTW
I wondered about these same things.
’m curious still about the attraction Fay had for Judge McKelva, and indeed that she seems to have for men in general. I know we get some hints about what would attract someone like the Judge to her, but I still don’t feel like I was given “good enough” reasons for it. Major Bullock (I hope that’s the right name!) also seemed to feel some sort of fascination/attraction/pity for her, while every woman in the novel can’t stand her. What is it about Fay that attracts men such that they don’t see the repellant qualities that the women around them dislike about her? In addition, do the women dislike her for the “right reasons” (such as her narrowness of soul) vs “wrong reasons” (jealousy, class prejudice, dislike of her simply because she’s a replacement)?
I feel like the "helpless child" angle was hinted at some point. I forget the page but it was the scene during the funeral where Major Bullock keeps trying to engage Fay. This is a trait that I've seen with other characters in other novels: Fay is so alarmingly inept that men can't help but want to protect her and capable women can't help but despise her.
That helps a lot, that last line especially! I just still wish there was more digging into that
What is the significance of birds throughout the novel? Are they meant to mirror the emotional state of the characters (as weather would in a gothic novel) or is there some deeper significance? I'm thinking specifically of (1) the mockingbird while the bridesmaids are giving their review of the funeral (page 110), (2) The cardinals attacking Becky's bird frighteners while the ladies are gossiping about Fay (page 117 ish), and (3) the bird that flits throughout the house during Laurel's cleaning of the house (page 132 ish). It seems like the author never explicitly describes what the characters are feeling, especially Laurel whose perspective we're looking out from and who we would expect to have a lot of complicated emotions during this time. Are we supposed to infer her emotions from the birds and, if so, what's the significance of birds specifically as an emotional outlet?
In poetry, birds are often metaphors for the soul. They are also harbingers and messengers. But I think that the key is also in the constant references to The Great Flood and the fact that Adele has this boat she wants to give to Laurel to remind her of her parents' love. There are references to pigeons (I will write a bit later on this)... and another word for pigeon is rock dove. A dove was sent out by Noah to find proof of land, and it brought back an olive branch. Another type of branch is a laurel that is often used to symbolize victory. Laurel ends up triumphant after the great flood of grief she is finally able to feel. It cleanses her of guilt. She is allowed to see Fay for what she is, and she realizes what really matters to her.
I feel like the bird theme hinges on the story of Laurel’s grandma’s pigeons (part 3), hinted at just before with her the 26 pigeonholes of her mothers desk, where they become her pets. I was hoping this would be discussed in the previous podcast, because I’m not really sure what this is about other than it seemed like a traumatizing event for Laurel.
I found this novel extremely tightly written; knowing it was a former short story expanded into novel length helped sort it in my mind. But I found the beginning of part 3 nearly superfluous to the rest of the novel. Am I missing something deeper in the chatter of the women of their town surrounding Laurel for what feels like a lot of pages in this short of a book? (The other extended dialogue scene of Faye's family makes sense, but for some reason this part felt like an outlier.)
This scene has Steel Magnolia vibes to me.
I thought the same thing!
I have so many questions. I have read and listened to Part 4 over and over again. Here's a start: we don't know anything about Laurel except her relationships with her parents and husband. Nothing about her life in Chicago except that she is a fabric designer. We don't know if she has friends, whether she dates and thinks about marrying again, why she continued to live in Chicago after her husband's death. Why? We don't really know what she is returning to at the end of the book.