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cbrandenburg's review against another edition
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
A little hard to get into as there are so many characters and getting their background takes a while, but second half reads much faster
sunshowersy's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
I can't possibly summarize Delta Wedding,even if prompted, even if I had lots of time to do so. It's such a world. I'm glad I took this detour, although in the end I think I admire, moreso than love, the book.
The blurb paints it as a 'portrait' of a sprawling plantation family, and it really is that. A portrait. There isn't really any plot, but if you want a story which is layers and layers of character then this is it. I've noticed that Eudora Welty tends towards these portraits, in her short stories as well as her novels (I've also tried to read Losing Battles, though that one has too much dialogue for me at the moment), and goodness she's excellent at it. Her descriptions are amazing. The sense of place and the (to use a fancy word) psychogeography is sublime. The way she describes the Mississippi Delta, the flatness of it, the heat, the bayous, the bugs bumping against the windows and the moths fluttering, the night insects as an 'audible twinkling, like a lowly starlight': absolutely delicious. You really get the sense that the Delta shapes these characters, that the Delta, with its constant flatness and bayous and sharp reminders of the blood-sediment it's built on (the sound of the cotton gin is constant) is a character.
However as a direct consequence maybe to this pointilist detail, the story is quite slow and takes all its time. I think Eudora Welty said that she wasn't a natural novel-writer, her novels being outgrowths of her short stories, and it really shows here. Readers, expect a slow, slow marinade with absolutely no tension (except one very memorable, brutal scene of several plantation workers being interrogated by the family overseer - and groom). I think Eudora Welty has even less events going on here than (say) a typical Anita Brookner novel. Although there is movement, there isn't any outward, overt unsettling going on, although this is extremely different in the case of the interior of the characters.
The real meat is in the POV characters, all of which are women. I loved Laura the most, because she has that tragic tenor, having lost her mother and gotten unmoored. I loved Ellen second, if there is a 'main character' then I think it is her. Third, I loved Shelley. Laura's sequences are the best because she walks around a lot and is fascinated by a lot of things - I think I loved her visit to the other house, her finding of the garnet brooch, and my favorite sequence: her remembrance of the best moment of her life (involving dolls). Ellen was a more 'binding' presence I think, in that she holds the book together, but I loved her final conclusion towards George, the bit about love's overflow (yes, yes it is like that!). Shelley I liked because she pokes around and keeps a journal. The characters overall are rendered with incredible detail that yes, you, the reader, will have to imbibe seven lives, seven different ways of seeing. It gets to be a burden but it is a duty.
There is also I think a Singer-like figure in George Fairchild, and a 'whirlpool event' in the near-running-over of George and Maureen. The characters spin around it, and him.
I really think the novel shines brightest when there's some sort of significant movement. Laura's visits, her first journey on the Yellow Dog, when Dabney visits her aunts, when Ellen visits an aunt and meets a faeling child. These are crags in a novel defined by its slopes, I think, its very gentle slopes.
The blurb paints it as a 'portrait' of a sprawling plantation family, and it really is that. A portrait. There isn't really any plot, but if you want a story which is layers and layers of character then this is it. I've noticed that Eudora Welty tends towards these portraits, in her short stories as well as her novels (I've also tried to read Losing Battles, though that one has too much dialogue for me at the moment), and goodness she's excellent at it. Her descriptions are amazing. The sense of place and the (to use a fancy word) psychogeography is sublime. The way she describes the Mississippi Delta, the flatness of it, the heat, the bayous, the bugs bumping against the windows and the moths fluttering, the night insects as an 'audible twinkling, like a lowly starlight': absolutely delicious. You really get the sense that the Delta shapes these characters, that the Delta, with its constant flatness and bayous and sharp reminders of the blood-sediment it's built on (the sound of the cotton gin is constant) is a character.
However as a direct consequence maybe to this pointilist detail, the story is quite slow and takes all its time. I think Eudora Welty said that she wasn't a natural novel-writer, her novels being outgrowths of her short stories, and it really shows here. Readers, expect a slow, slow marinade with absolutely no tension (except one very memorable, brutal scene of several plantation workers being interrogated by the family overseer - and groom). I think Eudora Welty has even less events going on here than (say) a typical Anita Brookner novel. Although there is movement, there isn't any outward, overt unsettling going on, although this is extremely different in the case of the interior of the characters.
The real meat is in the POV characters, all of which are women. I loved Laura the most, because she has that tragic tenor, having lost her mother and gotten unmoored. I loved Ellen second, if there is a 'main character' then I think it is her. Third, I loved Shelley. Laura's sequences are the best because she walks around a lot and is fascinated by a lot of things - I think I loved her visit to the other house, her finding of the garnet brooch, and my favorite sequence: her remembrance of the best moment of her life (involving dolls). Ellen was a more 'binding' presence I think, in that she holds the book together, but I loved her final conclusion towards George, the bit about love's overflow (yes, yes it is like that!). Shelley I liked because she pokes around and keeps a journal. The characters overall are rendered with incredible detail that yes, you, the reader, will have to imbibe seven lives, seven different ways of seeing. It gets to be a burden but it is a duty.
There is also I think a Singer-like figure in George Fairchild, and a 'whirlpool event' in the near-running-over of George and Maureen. The characters spin around it, and him.
I really think the novel shines brightest when there's some sort of significant movement. Laura's visits, her first journey on the Yellow Dog, when Dabney visits her aunts, when Ellen visits an aunt and meets a faeling child. These are crags in a novel defined by its slopes, I think, its very gentle slopes.
noel_rene_cisneros's review against another edition
Eudora Welty ofrece la historia de los Fairshildl, familia del sur, a través del matrimonio de una de sus hijas y lo hace con un estilo preciso, que no por ello deja de ser poético. Welty logra que la historia familiar se condense en los días previos a la boda (y en la boda misma), una historia no excenta de violencia.
ansley_claire's review against another edition
3.0
**3.25** felt like the little house on the prairie if it was set in the deep south with 2x the amount of family members! wasn’t bad whatsoever, just a little too slow for my taste! a classic Jackson tale that felt like my own family was replicated in the pages.
cljeff19's review against another edition
I did my best. But speaking as an English major, this felt like the worst kind of reading assignment: slow pace, no plot, rambling and confusing narration. Welty might accurately capture a time and place, but not one I’d want to spend time in.
lelia_t's review against another edition
4.0
Nine-year-old Laura McRaven, whose mother has recently died, arrives in the Delta to stay with her mother’s people, the Fairchilds, on their cotton plantation. There’s an extended clan of Fairchilds, who have been a “ruling class” family for generations, and Laura jumps right into the chaotic life of many children, many aunts and uncles, many servants, as they prepare for cousin Dabney’s wedding to the Fairchild’s overseer Troy Flavin.
That makes the book sound straightforward, but it’s complex, layered and dreamy as our perspective shifts among characters, particularly among the white women. There are whole paragraphs where the meaning seems opaque to the logical reading mind, yet speaks on deeper levels. Like the whirlpool in the Yazoo River - the one some characters are afraid of and others have swum in - the book can pull you into its depths. We feel this pull in the Fairchild clan itself, which has a mythos that sucks people in - for better or worse - while leaving others stranded outside the magic circle. There’s so much in this book - the class and racial divides, family expectations, women’s privileged and burdened role in family and plantation life, innocence, belonging, idealized motherhood, and the impending changes in Southern culture - and the whole time you’re feeling these realities rather than thinking them. And of course there’s the wounded golden boy, Uncle George - based at least partly on Welty’s longtime love-interest and then friend John Robinson - a legend in the family, fondly relied and doted on, capable of kindness and surprising callousness.
It’s a book I could read again and again, beautiful and deep, sweet and filled with a yearning that’s difficult to pin down.
That makes the book sound straightforward, but it’s complex, layered and dreamy as our perspective shifts among characters, particularly among the white women. There are whole paragraphs where the meaning seems opaque to the logical reading mind, yet speaks on deeper levels. Like the whirlpool in the Yazoo River - the one some characters are afraid of and others have swum in - the book can pull you into its depths. We feel this pull in the Fairchild clan itself, which has a mythos that sucks people in - for better or worse - while leaving others stranded outside the magic circle. There’s so much in this book - the class and racial divides, family expectations, women’s privileged and burdened role in family and plantation life, innocence, belonging, idealized motherhood, and the impending changes in Southern culture - and the whole time you’re feeling these realities rather than thinking them. And of course there’s the wounded golden boy, Uncle George - based at least partly on Welty’s longtime love-interest and then friend John Robinson - a legend in the family, fondly relied and doted on, capable of kindness and surprising callousness.
It’s a book I could read again and again, beautiful and deep, sweet and filled with a yearning that’s difficult to pin down.
hp_reading's review
4.0
Wandering and wistful, with an urgency running through it as sinister and inviting as a dark Yazoo River. A true snapshot of the Delta in happiness and poised on the edge of something new.
haley_pettit's review against another edition
3.0
After reading this novel, you can certainly tell why Eudora Welty made a name for herself. The descriptions and dialogue were very well crafted, and as a reader you could put yourself in the story. However, I found the pacing painfully slow (I love slower reads, but this was extreme) and I only found one character to be likable/interesting. Overall, good quality, but it honestly it not worth the read at all. There are much better books to spend your time on
soniapage's review against another edition
4.0
This was like returning home to the South! Not much happened, but I enjoyed the descriptions of the surroundings and food that make up so much of the "feel" of the Southern U.S.
xanadu_'s review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5