New York : Vintage Books, 1990.
180 p. ; 21 cm.
The past several years I've been updating our library's collection of literary criticism and noticed the availability of several volumes of Bloom's criticisms for Eudora Welty. I acquired two and added a couple of her novels, too. I had heard of Welty, but had never read any of her novels so I picked The Optimist's Daughter - the novel that brought Welty a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
In some ways the novel is more of a meditation than a novel. Very little really "happens" in the novel - a daughter returns to the south to be with her father for a surgery that does not turn out well, and has to deal with the shallow new wife that her father recently married.
Before returning to Chicago where she lives and works, the main character, Laurel revisits the home of her childhood and ruminates on the people her mother and father were.
It's not an incredibly compelling read, but I enjoyed it and appreciated its subtle and light-handed touch, a touch which does not take away from seriousness of the subject matter. I'd definitely recommend Welty for a student looking for an author to research for an English class.
Welty's novel reminded me a bit of Carson McCullers, and made me want to go back and reread some Flannery O'Connor - which I have not read in many, many years.
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