457. The Optimist’s Daughter

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Terra McKinish

Author:   Eudora Welty

Genre:   Fiction

192 pages, published 1972

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Optimist’s Daughter is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her foolish young stepmother travel to the small Mississippi town where Laurel grew up.  Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding of the past, herself, and her parents.

Quotes 

“The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought.”

 

“She was sent to sleep under a velvety cloak of words, richly patterned and stitched with gold, straight out of a fairy tale, while they went reading on into her dreams.”

 

“And perhaps it didn’t matter to them, not always, what they read aloud; it was the breath of life flowing between them, and the words of the moment riding on it that held them in delight. Between some two people every word is beautiful, or might as well be beautiful.”

 

“You know, sir, this operation is not, in any hands, a hundred percent predictable?”

“Well, I’m an optimist.”

“I didn’t know there were any more such animals,” said Dr. Courtland.

“Never think you’ve seen the last of anything,”

 

“The fantasies of dying could be no stranger than the fantasies of living. Survival is perhaps the strangest fantasy of them all.”

 

“It is memory that is the somnambulist. It will come back in its wounds from across the world, like Phil, calling us by our names and demanding its rightful tears. It will never be impervious. The memory can be hurt, time and again — but in that may lie its final mercy. As long as it’s vulnerable to the living moment, it lives for us, and while it lives, and while we are able, we can give it up its due.”

 

My Take

Some books stand the test of time (I’m looking at you John Steinbeck) and some do not.  Unfortunately, The Optimist’s Daughter falls into the latter category.  I say this even though it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1973 and was a National Book Award Finalist for Fiction that same year.  I found it hard to follow, had little interest in the plot or characters and was bored throughout.