The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty - A Tribute to Dewey
Back in 2008, Dewey and I co-reviewed The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty. We were both doing the Pulitzer Project, and when she noticed that we both planned to read it next, she suggested we discuss it and post the results. This was my very first buddy review with another blogger, but I never actually got around to posting it myself. I misunderstood the date when I was supposed to, and then I was embarrassed to post it late. Isn't that silly? I wish I had told Dewey, so that she could have made one of her sarcastic but not unfriendly comments that never failed to make me laugh at myself and feel so much better - about everything.
It's been a year now that Dewey passed away. For those of you who never had the chance to know her, she was the blogger behind the hidden side of a leaf. I wrote a post about why I thought so highly of her after she passed away, and another one along with Debi, Renay and Chris for BBAW this past September.
I thought it would be a fitting tribute to her to finally post our joint review today - so that those of you who loved her too can remember her along with me, and those who never knew her can get a glimpse of the lovely, thoughtful, intelligent and insightful person that she was:
The Optimist's Daughter begins when Laurel flies from Chicago to New Orleans to be with her father as he recovers from an operation. The recovery doesn't go well, however, and when he passed away Laurel is left alone with Fay, his unpleasant second wife, in the community in which she grew up, full of people who worshipped her father. The story takes place over a short period of of time, during which Laurel is forced to confront all her losses.
Dewey: I found Fay the most extremely self-centered character I’ve seen in literature in a while, but she was just shy of over-the-top. She was as believebly self-centered as it’s possible to make a character, I think, and I admired Welty’s ability to walk that fine line. My second thought is about loss/grief. It was very realistic to me that Laurel’s father’s death triggered renewed grief over her loss of her mother and husband. I think Welty said much else about grief in this novel, too.
Me: I completely agree about Fay. She’s as dislikeable as a character can possibly be without becoming a one-dimensional cartoonish villain, and, like you, I really admire the way Welty managed to maintain that balance.
About halfway through the book, though, I started wondering about Fay. I disliked her from page one and I kept on disliking her right until the end. But we never really find out why the Judge married her, and I found myself wondering if perhaps there wasn’t more to their relationship than what we got to see at the start of the book; if perhaps there wasn’t a hidden side to Fay that only the Judge got to see.
All of Laurel’s friends in Mount Sallus reject Fay, and she undoubtedly doesn’t deserve more than their contempt, but I also wondered if their reaction would have been any different if she had been likeable. Wouldn’t the fact that she was a stranger, that she was a woman marrying a man much older than herself, have been enough to make them reject her?
This brings me to another point: I really liked the way the book portrayed small communities and the good and the bad that can come out of them. When Laurel and Fay return from New Orleans, the Judge’s house is full of people offering their support, and there’s warmth and solidarity and genuine concern. But there’s also unintentional cruelty, especially directed at Laurel. At some point somebody tells her that “it is a good thing that she has nobody else to lose” or something to that effect, and isn’t that a terrible thing to say? They also seem to be dismissive and even a bit contemptuous when it comes to Laurel’s life and work in Chicago. I thought that there was a bit of a “we’ll accept you and love you and support you, but only if you behave according to our norms” vibe behind the whole thing.
I also agree that this novel says a lot about grief and loss. There’s a quote I wrote down because I thought it nailed down a lot of what the book was about for me:
Dewey: About Fay: Yes, I think that your quote also relates to why the Judge married her. We don’t know anything more about her than we get to see through Laurel’s point of view. We never get the Judge’s point of view. So we only have the mystery of how little we know about her. And I agree that if she had been a likable person, she still might have had troubles being accepted in what seemed like a very insular social group in a very insular town. No one would have been good enough for the Judge! No one would have been Becky.
Another thing I wanted to mention to you about Fay is that she said something odd to Laurel, that she would never have gone off and left people who cared about her like Laurel had when she went to Chicago. But that was when she was still lying to Laurel about having any family. Later, when her family showed up, I remembered that and thought, “But she did go off and leave people behind!” I’m not sure what Welty was trying to say with that. The one negative judgment Fay can find to make against Laurel is something she herself has done. What does that say about her?
About the unintentional cruelty at the memorial service: I find in real life that someone, maybe several someones, will always say the wrong thing, something appalling that you just can’t believe they said. People feel so at a loss for what to say in those situations that they sometimes blurt out something completely inappropriate. Sometimes they even know it and feel sorry later.
About there being different versions of the Judge: Yes, I thought that went right along with the idea that you only know your own version of someone based on your limited experience with them. And when Laurel was going through her mother’s papers, she didn’t read the letters from the Judge. So she didn’t take the chance to see another version of her mother, to see her mother through the Judge’s point of view. I think this book is so much about point of view. She never gets to see her husband grow older, never gets to see him through her own changed point of view, the point of view of a long-married woman. When Fay’s family shows up and we have the chance to know more about Fay through them, it doesn’t really happen.
And I think the bread board was a symbol of point of view. Laurel has only ever seen the bread board in one role: the well-kept, smooth board her father made and her mother used only for bread and kept “as clean as a dish.” She’s furious about the version of the bread board she sees after it’s been in Fay’s care: something beat up and splintered, something Fay used as a surface on which crack open walnuts with a hammer. Laurel wants to take it away with her and restore it to its original state. Fay at first says no, doesn’t she? And then she say she doesn’t care, which in turn leaves Laurel not caring, either. I think the bread board represents several things. I think it represents the Judge, and how well-cared-for he was with Becky, and how sick he became once Becky was gone and he was married to Fay. The same could be said about the house. And I think it represents the different versions there are of everyone, and how unwilling Laurel is to see any other version of people but her own.
Me: You said, “I find in real life that someone, maybe several someones, will always say the wrong thing, something appalling that you just can’t believe they said. People feel so at a loss for what to say in those situations that they sometimes blurt out something completely inappropriate. Sometimes they even know it and feel sorry later.”
That’s a very good point, and it makes sense that that was the case in the book. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be to come up with the “right” thing to say. I also like your thoughts on what the bread board symbolizes. And yes, Laural seems very much unwilling to see other sides of people – your example of the Judge’s letters is a perfect one.
(I had almost forgotten that The Optimist's Daughter was very much about death, grief and loss - which, sadly, makes it extra fitting. Miss you, Dewey.)
Other reviews:
Paperback Reader
A Fondness for Reading
(Did I miss yours?)
It's been a year now that Dewey passed away. For those of you who never had the chance to know her, she was the blogger behind the hidden side of a leaf. I wrote a post about why I thought so highly of her after she passed away, and another one along with Debi, Renay and Chris for BBAW this past September.
I thought it would be a fitting tribute to her to finally post our joint review today - so that those of you who loved her too can remember her along with me, and those who never knew her can get a glimpse of the lovely, thoughtful, intelligent and insightful person that she was:
The Optimist's Daughter begins when Laurel flies from Chicago to New Orleans to be with her father as he recovers from an operation. The recovery doesn't go well, however, and when he passed away Laurel is left alone with Fay, his unpleasant second wife, in the community in which she grew up, full of people who worshipped her father. The story takes place over a short period of of time, during which Laurel is forced to confront all her losses.
Dewey: I found Fay the most extremely self-centered character I’ve seen in literature in a while, but she was just shy of over-the-top. She was as believebly self-centered as it’s possible to make a character, I think, and I admired Welty’s ability to walk that fine line. My second thought is about loss/grief. It was very realistic to me that Laurel’s father’s death triggered renewed grief over her loss of her mother and husband. I think Welty said much else about grief in this novel, too.
Me: I completely agree about Fay. She’s as dislikeable as a character can possibly be without becoming a one-dimensional cartoonish villain, and, like you, I really admire the way Welty managed to maintain that balance.
About halfway through the book, though, I started wondering about Fay. I disliked her from page one and I kept on disliking her right until the end. But we never really find out why the Judge married her, and I found myself wondering if perhaps there wasn’t more to their relationship than what we got to see at the start of the book; if perhaps there wasn’t a hidden side to Fay that only the Judge got to see.
All of Laurel’s friends in Mount Sallus reject Fay, and she undoubtedly doesn’t deserve more than their contempt, but I also wondered if their reaction would have been any different if she had been likeable. Wouldn’t the fact that she was a stranger, that she was a woman marrying a man much older than herself, have been enough to make them reject her?
This brings me to another point: I really liked the way the book portrayed small communities and the good and the bad that can come out of them. When Laurel and Fay return from New Orleans, the Judge’s house is full of people offering their support, and there’s warmth and solidarity and genuine concern. But there’s also unintentional cruelty, especially directed at Laurel. At some point somebody tells her that “it is a good thing that she has nobody else to lose” or something to that effect, and isn’t that a terrible thing to say? They also seem to be dismissive and even a bit contemptuous when it comes to Laurel’s life and work in Chicago. I thought that there was a bit of a “we’ll accept you and love you and support you, but only if you behave according to our norms” vibe behind the whole thing.
I also agree that this novel says a lot about grief and loss. There’s a quote I wrote down because I thought it nailed down a lot of what the book was about for me:
The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought.After her father’s death, when the people of Mount Sallus are reminiscing about him, Laurel compares her own version of her father to the stories that are being told, and they don’t always match. I think that she realizes that there are several versions of her father, and even though she's his daughter, and therefore closer to him than most, she can’t exactly claim that her own version is more accurate than anyone else’s. I think that this adds another dimension to her loss – realizing that no matter how close you are to a person, there are always sides to them that you don’t get to see, and once they are gone, you will never get to see those sides of them at all. And of course, if this is true of her father, then it is also true of her mother and of her husband. I think that this realization could have made her feel that she was losing the people she had loved all over again, or losing more of them than she had known before. Does this make sense?
Dewey: About Fay: Yes, I think that your quote also relates to why the Judge married her. We don’t know anything more about her than we get to see through Laurel’s point of view. We never get the Judge’s point of view. So we only have the mystery of how little we know about her. And I agree that if she had been a likable person, she still might have had troubles being accepted in what seemed like a very insular social group in a very insular town. No one would have been good enough for the Judge! No one would have been Becky.
Another thing I wanted to mention to you about Fay is that she said something odd to Laurel, that she would never have gone off and left people who cared about her like Laurel had when she went to Chicago. But that was when she was still lying to Laurel about having any family. Later, when her family showed up, I remembered that and thought, “But she did go off and leave people behind!” I’m not sure what Welty was trying to say with that. The one negative judgment Fay can find to make against Laurel is something she herself has done. What does that say about her?
About the unintentional cruelty at the memorial service: I find in real life that someone, maybe several someones, will always say the wrong thing, something appalling that you just can’t believe they said. People feel so at a loss for what to say in those situations that they sometimes blurt out something completely inappropriate. Sometimes they even know it and feel sorry later.
About there being different versions of the Judge: Yes, I thought that went right along with the idea that you only know your own version of someone based on your limited experience with them. And when Laurel was going through her mother’s papers, she didn’t read the letters from the Judge. So she didn’t take the chance to see another version of her mother, to see her mother through the Judge’s point of view. I think this book is so much about point of view. She never gets to see her husband grow older, never gets to see him through her own changed point of view, the point of view of a long-married woman. When Fay’s family shows up and we have the chance to know more about Fay through them, it doesn’t really happen.
And I think the bread board was a symbol of point of view. Laurel has only ever seen the bread board in one role: the well-kept, smooth board her father made and her mother used only for bread and kept “as clean as a dish.” She’s furious about the version of the bread board she sees after it’s been in Fay’s care: something beat up and splintered, something Fay used as a surface on which crack open walnuts with a hammer. Laurel wants to take it away with her and restore it to its original state. Fay at first says no, doesn’t she? And then she say she doesn’t care, which in turn leaves Laurel not caring, either. I think the bread board represents several things. I think it represents the Judge, and how well-cared-for he was with Becky, and how sick he became once Becky was gone and he was married to Fay. The same could be said about the house. And I think it represents the different versions there are of everyone, and how unwilling Laurel is to see any other version of people but her own.
Me: You said, “I find in real life that someone, maybe several someones, will always say the wrong thing, something appalling that you just can’t believe they said. People feel so at a loss for what to say in those situations that they sometimes blurt out something completely inappropriate. Sometimes they even know it and feel sorry later.”
That’s a very good point, and it makes sense that that was the case in the book. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be to come up with the “right” thing to say. I also like your thoughts on what the bread board symbolizes. And yes, Laural seems very much unwilling to see other sides of people – your example of the Judge’s letters is a perfect one.
(I had almost forgotten that The Optimist's Daughter was very much about death, grief and loss - which, sadly, makes it extra fitting. Miss you, Dewey.)
Other reviews:
Paperback Reader
A Fondness for Reading
(Did I miss yours?)
Hugs. Such a poignant post, Ana, especially as the book did sadly deal with the themes of loss, grief and death. A very fitting tribute.
ReplyDeleteFay was an exceptionally unsympathetic character. I wonder whether her point to Laurel about leaving people behind was in a way a connection with her and that despite all of their differences they did have something in common; if Laurel had done the same then perhaps it wasn't entirely despicable or perhaps Welty was pointing out how self-deceived Fay was, even in denial.
In my post I mentioned the unsuitability of the cover; the same cover is currently being used in the US for The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips (I reviewed it recently), another Southern novel that actually has a young girl on a porch so far more appropriate.
*hugs*
ReplyDeleteI'm so very glad you decided to post this today, Ana.
And while I never read the book, I had read yours and Dewey's chat more than once in the past. I'd forgotten, too, how much it was about loss and grief.
I love you, Ana.
*continues hugging*
Nymeth, this must have been a tough thing to do, and I'm sending you hugs for it. I had just started blogging when Dewey died, so I didn't know her. But talk about someone whose spirit lives on! Because of the incredibly warm and loving blogging community, this fine lady will never be forgotten. I love discussion posts, and is so poignant to read this one now.
ReplyDeleteOh Ana-what a gift. :) Although I totally teared up at Dewey's mention of memorial services, especially: "People feel so at a loss for what to say in those situations..." So true.
ReplyDeleteI miss her. But I'm so glad we had her for as long as we did.
This is such a lovely tribute to Dewey. It is so nice to see that her name lives on in the blogging world and hope that it always will.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful and fitting tribute to Dewey, Ana.
ReplyDeletewow. I'm going to have to come back later and read this, if that's ok. I'm feeling a bit of that 'triggered renewed grief'.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Dewey, but this is beautiful. I wish I had been blogging back then, I really do. I needed all of this in my life then, all of this wonderful communication and friendship. *HUGS ALL AROUND*
ReplyDeleteHow ironic that this post was about loss and memorial services, and how sad. A beautiful tribute for you to publish at this time of Thanksgiving and remembering!
ReplyDeleteOK, I read it all the way through. (after coming back from reading Eva's tribute) I'm a bit numb.
ReplyDelete#luvana, MISS DEWEY. :)
(and I'm really shocked out how emotional I feel, anyway...)
Dewey sounded like one hell of a women, who had such a big impact on the people whose lives she touched. I feel quite sad after reading your post and Eva's today. I hope where ever Dewey is, she realises how loved and how much she is missed.
ReplyDeleteSo wonderful of you to post this now. I enjoyed reading it so much.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a beautiful post, Ana. It must have been really hard for you to read though this and decide to post it anyway. (:
ReplyDeleteThanks for such a fitting post, Ana. I visited Dewey's blog, but never had the fortune of interacting with her, really. I am so glad, though, that I have gotten to know the kind of person she was through so many others.
ReplyDeleteSeems the universe had a plan for this post in the end.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very nice tribute. It's been nice to see so many tributes to Dewey up today, when I have a chance to read them all.
She still have a very strong presence in the book blogging world.
What a wonderful review and fitting tribue to Dewey, one year later. I was new to Dewey's blog and then she passed. I'm sad I never had the opportunity to know her as so many of you did. But it is wonderful that she is not forgotten@
ReplyDeleteI've had this book on my list, and it sounds like one I would probably enjoy reading --just too depressing for now. Great Review.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful tribute to Dewey on this bittersweet day. I've linked this post to my tribute to her...thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteShe was a really thoughtful and insightful reader. Thanks for posting this again, especially for those of us that never had the opportunity to read it the first time.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lovely tribute, Nymeth! I wish I had known Dewey better!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a nice tribute to such a great force in the blogging world.
ReplyDeleteHugs to you Nymeth. Dewey is still much missed in the blogging world but people like you keep her alive in more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nymeth, for allowing us to read Dewey's words. After she was gone I was so sad but glad that she could still be here with us through her words on her blog. Now with even that gone. . . we have to really hold on to the memories we have of her. She was a wonderful person. Thank you for posting this.
ReplyDeleteI never knew Dewey, as I started blogging after she passed away, but have caught glimmers of her spirit throughout the year. She does indeed, sound like a very special person; I am sorry not to have known her. I'm sure this was a difficult post for you: thank you so much for sharing her and her words.
ReplyDeleteAna, I hope you know how much of a gift you've given us all with this post. You're such a sweet and special person to post this. It's nice to "hear" her voice again. This was just wonderful and such a nice surprise. Thanks Ana! ((((hugs))))
ReplyDelete((((Nymeth)))) I'm sorry you lost your friend.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great way to pay tribute to her!
Thanks for posting this - it was bittersweet to hear from Dewey again, but definitely more sweet than bitter. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that you never got to post this with her, but am thrilled that you were now able to do so. It is a great way to honor her memory and all that she brought to the blogging community. She truly was amazing and although I was not that close to her I did admire her and certainly understand your pain and loss.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting your joint review Nymeth. (((hugs))) What a great way to pay tribute to Dewey.
ReplyDeletehttp://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/
That was a great joint review Nymeth. I didn't know Dewey, but I can see that she had a great impact on many of the bloggers who I love to visit. She sounds like a really special person, I wish I had known her.
ReplyDeleteA lovely tribute, and a great review team you made. I only knew Dewey for three months but I still remember how hard I laughed at the picture on her last giveaway announcement. It's hard to imagine someone with that much fun in them can be gone.
ReplyDelete