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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A slow, meandering, plotless, and detail-focused book. It’s most interesting when you dig at the little fissures and cracks that spring up in the narrative between descriptions of floral arrangements and family meals—racism, casual cruelty, delusions, willfull ignorance of others’ lives and thoughts.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism
Minor: Sexual violence, Violence, Vomit, Death of parent
I alternated this with An Unkindness of Ghosts (fantastic book), and a line from that describing life on the white upper-decks sums this one up perfectly:
“Everybody doing nothing very slowly”
“Everybody doing nothing very slowly”
I love this passage: "Her nose in the banana skin as in the cup of a lily, she watched the Delta. The land was perfectly flat and level but it shimmered like the wing of a lighted dragongly. It seemed strummed, as though it were an instrument and something had touched it.
--Eudora Welty
I have never read a more beautiful description of the Mississippi Delta. Welty has the most lovely turn of language. Even a thank you note in her hands is a thing of incredible beauty and awe.
Laura McRaven, a nine-year-old girl, is visiting her dead mother's family in the Mississippi Delta to attend Cousin Dabney's wedding. The book is a portrait of a Southern family in the 1920s. The plot is simple: the Fairchild family gathers for the wedding, and everyone brings their dreams, memories, grudges,and scandals.
--Eudora Welty
I have never read a more beautiful description of the Mississippi Delta. Welty has the most lovely turn of language. Even a thank you note in her hands is a thing of incredible beauty and awe.
Laura McRaven, a nine-year-old girl, is visiting her dead mother's family in the Mississippi Delta to attend Cousin Dabney's wedding. The book is a portrait of a Southern family in the 1920s. The plot is simple: the Fairchild family gathers for the wedding, and everyone brings their dreams, memories, grudges,and scandals.
A large, raucous family of uncles, aunts and cousins, the Fairchilds have a powerful adoration for their own kin, as well the inclination to disagree, tease, and even argue with one another. On the other hand, their disagreements are quickly forgotten in their efforts to champion the family name to outsiders. Outsiders include those who simply married into the family and who must prove themselves to the others, especially if they did not originate in the Delta.
Uncle George the family favorite, and the uncle whose attention everyone seeks, is given far more grace than he deserves. He married "beneath" the status of his Mississippi Delta, plantation owning family by taking Robbie Reed, the store keeper's daughter, to be his wife. When George makes an impromptu decision to put himself at risk in order to protect a family member from harm, Robbie feels that George will always put the Fairchild's welfare over her own. She leaves George in a fit of anger and refuses to attend to the wedding of Dabney, George's niece. Dabney is also marrying beneath the family by accepting the proposal of the plantation's supervisor, Troy Flavin who hails from the mountains up near the Tennessee line. Seventeen year old Dabney worries the family might be unhappy with her choice of husband, a man who is twice her age without the social status of the Fairchilds. In the days leading up to the wedding, she seeks affirmation from the family for her decision to marry Troy. During all of this family drama, little Laura McRaven, a younger cousin, has been transported on the train nicknamed THE YELLOW DOG so that she can spend time with her extended family . Her own mother, a Fairchild by birth, recently passed away. Laura is trying to find her own place in this large, outgoing, loving family while grieving in the ways a young child would grieve. Wanting them to remember her mother, she frequently reminds everyone "my mother is dead".
The critics of DELTA WEDDING most often complain that it does not have a strong plot. Personally, I found it a wonderful conglomeration of incidents and conversations occurring among the individuals of a large, loving family with all its strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. Ms. Welty's work, in my opinion, is descriptive and beautifully written, while at the same time warm and comforting. Upon reading this story, I found myself in love with the Fairchild family as individuals and a whole. They reminded me of my large, extended, southern family and the way they wrapped their arms around me when my own mother passed away, when I was but a tender age like Laura McRaven.
The novel, a period piece written in 1946 and set in 1923 in the Mississippi Delta, does contain descriptions of discrimination toward the African Americans who worked the plantation and served in the Fairchild's home.
Some stories lend themselves better to alternative methods of reading, such as audiobook, and I felt this was one of those books. The beautiful language, detailed descriptions, and the intentional, slow moving narrative lend themselves perfectly to being read aloud. I greatly enjoyed the audio version of DELTA WEDDING.
Uncle George the family favorite, and the uncle whose attention everyone seeks, is given far more grace than he deserves. He married "beneath" the status of his Mississippi Delta, plantation owning family by taking Robbie Reed, the store keeper's daughter, to be his wife. When George makes an impromptu decision to put himself at risk in order to protect a family member from harm, Robbie feels that George will always put the Fairchild's welfare over her own. She leaves George in a fit of anger and refuses to attend to the wedding of Dabney, George's niece. Dabney is also marrying beneath the family by accepting the proposal of the plantation's supervisor, Troy Flavin who hails from the mountains up near the Tennessee line. Seventeen year old Dabney worries the family might be unhappy with her choice of husband, a man who is twice her age without the social status of the Fairchilds. In the days leading up to the wedding, she seeks affirmation from the family for her decision to marry Troy. During all of this family drama, little Laura McRaven, a younger cousin, has been transported on the train nicknamed THE YELLOW DOG so that she can spend time with her extended family . Her own mother, a Fairchild by birth, recently passed away. Laura is trying to find her own place in this large, outgoing, loving family while grieving in the ways a young child would grieve. Wanting them to remember her mother, she frequently reminds everyone "my mother is dead".
The critics of DELTA WEDDING most often complain that it does not have a strong plot. Personally, I found it a wonderful conglomeration of incidents and conversations occurring among the individuals of a large, loving family with all its strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. Ms. Welty's work, in my opinion, is descriptive and beautifully written, while at the same time warm and comforting. Upon reading this story, I found myself in love with the Fairchild family as individuals and a whole. They reminded me of my large, extended, southern family and the way they wrapped their arms around me when my own mother passed away, when I was but a tender age like Laura McRaven.
The novel, a period piece written in 1946 and set in 1923 in the Mississippi Delta, does contain descriptions of discrimination toward the African Americans who worked the plantation and served in the Fairchild's home.
Some stories lend themselves better to alternative methods of reading, such as audiobook, and I felt this was one of those books. The beautiful language, detailed descriptions, and the intentional, slow moving narrative lend themselves perfectly to being read aloud. I greatly enjoyed the audio version of DELTA WEDDING.
A large, extended family gathers for a wedding on their cotton plantation in 1920's Mississippi. It seems that not much happens other than that, but Welty creates a thick atmosphere and delves so deftly into various characters' psyche that you'll realize that the plot is not really the point. Brilliant writing.
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Gorgeous, honeysuckle-dewed gaze into a postbellum/Reconstruction era family and plantation life. Incredible characters, voices, and startlingly beautiful prose.
The common view was that, though the writing was lush, and the characterizations apt, the novel did show the flaws that you might have expected from a first-time author.
The tone of the first chapter, from the point of view of a young child, was excellent. But she was not able to construct a story line that could be told from Laura's point of view, and had to flit from character to character to continue the narrative. (But only, to Bruce's disappointment, using female characters.)
There was no character development, no revelations, no resolution, no explanation of any of the odd (though interesting) characters that drifted through the delta.
The tone of the first chapter, from the point of view of a young child, was excellent. But she was not able to construct a story line that could be told from Laura's point of view, and had to flit from character to character to continue the narrative. (But only, to Bruce's disappointment, using female characters.)
There was no character development, no revelations, no resolution, no explanation of any of the odd (though interesting) characters that drifted through the delta.
I must say I expected more from this novel. I have really enjoyed reading Eudora Welty's stories in the past. But this one really fell flat. It started well: a southern family gathering for a wedding, family conflicts which have been silenced coming up again, stream-of-consciousness monologues by the different members of the family... But then, basically, not much happened. There was no big crisis, no climax, no moment of confrontation. Just a sort of quiet desperation on the part of some, hopelessness on the part of others, and life going on much as a usual. What I also disliked was the fact that the Fairchild family is basically a dynasty of landowners whose wealth was based first on slavery and then on the exploitation of poor black men in the Mississippi delta. Yet there is practically no criticism of this type of economic system. It is only hinted once that the overseer who is to marry one of the Fairchild daughters is dealing with some labour issues using a gun. But that's it. I thought it too bland considering the situation of black folk in the south at the time (the 1920s). I felt a bit like when I read Gone With the Wind. There is an overly romantic portrayal of the rich in the south, the "southern belles", blatantly ignoring their treatment of the white community.