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A review by sunshowersy
Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
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.