The Optimist's Daughter: Q&A
closereads.substack.com
May 9 • 1HR 13M
The Optimist's Daughter: Q&A
Appears in this episode
Heidi White
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Close Reads is a book-club podcast for the incurable reader. Featuring David Kern, Tim McIntosh and Heidi White, alongside a couple of other occasional guests, we read Great Books and talk about them. This is a show for amateurs in the best sense. We’re book lovers, book enthusiasts. This is not an experts show and it’s barely literary analysis in the way that literary analysis is commonly understood. Instead it’s a show about experiences with literary urge. Join us!
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You have questions, we’ve got thoughts! So click that play button and dig into this conversation on The Optimist’s Daughter!
Please note: next week we will be off, but after that we will begin conversations on The Scarlet Letter with very special guest Karen Swallow Prior!
The Optimist's Daughter: Q&A
Really great series on The Optimist's Daughter!
Heidi, my daughter Catherine is in grad school at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology where Dr. Tim Patitsas is on the faculty. Today he asked her if she knew Heidi White...she said, only from Close Reads. Dr. Tim told her that Heidi White said his book (The Ethics of Beauty) was one of the most important written in the last 100 years...and that you are now one of his favorite people. :) (He asked because he knows we both live in Colorado). Catherine is thrilled at the convergence of her academic world with the greater classical Christian world, and how Dr. Tim's book is enjoying some popularity. I am too!
I agree with all you have said about Major Bullock, but I think he serves one more crucial purpose in the story. Without Major Bullock and his summons of Fay’s family, I think there would have been the risk of Fay seeming more sympathetic. She is clearly an outsider in the community. Including even just a few minor characters who are more consoling to Fay in the novel prevent the reader from perceiving Fay as a poor, little widow the entire town is ganging up as soon as her powerful husband dies. It is just a minor adjustment with a large impact--it’s brilliant, in my opinion.