The Optimist's Daughter
Eudora Welty
180 pages

First sentence: A nurse held the door open for them.

Reflections: The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, and is a short but stunning work. Set primarily in Mississippi, it's the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, currently living in Chicago, visiting the South where her father is failing. Judge McKelva was a pillar of his community. After the death of his first wife (Laurel's mother), he remarried a woman younger than Laurel herself. Welty, through small but significant descriptions of second wife Fay, makes the reader despise her in the first few pages. She is introduced on page 1 when Fay, Laurel, and the Judge are meeting with a doctor about the Judge's condition: "Fay, small and pale in her dress with the gold buttons, was tapping her sandaled foot." And two pages later, as the Judge is describing his medical problem: "Fay laughed -- a single, high note, as derisive as a jay's."

Laurel and Fay are forced together as the Judge's condition deteriorates, and he subsequently passes away. Fay is tremendously put out by his death, since it happens on her birthday. After the funeral she leaves town to be with her family. Laurel remains to sort through some of her father's effects and, since Fay has inherited the house, to remove memories of her mother, which she knows Fay will not respect.

Welty's writing is beautiful throughout, evoking a strong "sense of place". Here are just a few examples:

"The ancient porter was already rolling his iron-wheeled wagon to meet the baggage car, before the train halted. All six of Laurel's bridesmaids, as they still called themselves, were waiting on the station platform."

"The procession passed between ironwork gates whose kneeling angles and looping vines shone black as licorice."

"The gooseneck lamp threw its dimmed beam on the secretary's warm brown doors. It had been made of the cherry trees on the McKelva place a long time ago; on the lid, the numerals 1817 had been set into a not quite perfect oval of different wood, something smooth and yellow as a scrap of satin."

I was fully immersed in this book; wrapped in a blanket of beautiful prose.  I will likely read more of Welty's work.  ( )

41 / 50 (82.0%)

Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
581 pages

First sentence: I am an invisible man

Reflections: Invisible Man was first published in 1947, and won the National Book Award in 1953. It is, essentially, a young black man's search for identity in white American society, long before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his mark. The nameless main character has a series of experiences on his quest, reminiscent of Homer's Odyssey(there's even a "cyclops": at one point it's revealed that a larger-than-life character actually has only one eye!). He sets out on his journey remembering his grandfather's dying words: "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. ... I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree ' em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open."

Ellison portrays the characters, his life experiences, and various acts of racism in great, descriptive detail. The protagonist begins his quest on departure from an historically black college located in the Deep South, where the president acts subservient to white benefactors. He experiences more overt acts of racism finding employment in Harlem, and eventually becomes an activist member of a political movement. It appears he is accepted for his gift of oratory, but in reality he is being used by the white leaders of the movement to further their hidden agendas. He eventually realizes that as a black man he is invisible to whites, he simply doesn't matter.

Reading Invisible Man, I reflected on the "invisibility" of African Americans still today. Lincoln University, an historically black university, is only a few miles from my house. Over more than 150 years, Lincoln has produced notable alumni like Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. Yet it is virtually invisible to the surrounding community, which is comprised of farms and housing developments, and is predominantly white. There are few public events, and rarely do I see Lincoln students in our local shops. However, there is one incident that haunts me, and makes me ashamed of the community I live in. One hot summer evening, we went to the local Dairy Queen. While there, a Lincoln University van drove up and several students came into the DQ, ordering ice cream and taking seats at a group of tables. Other customers came into the store, and every single one placed their order, and nonchalantly strode outdoors to eat their ice cream. I was appalled. We have such a long way to go to achieve equality and community.

I wanted to be enthralled by this book and unfortunately, I wasn't. Yet considering the times in which it was written, it is a bold piece of literature and an important, thought-provoking book.

33 / 50 (66.0%)

12,442 / 15,000 (82.9%)

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
323 pages

First sentence: When he was thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm broken badly at the elbow.

Reflections: Harper Lee's Pulitzer prizewinner is such a classic; the plot is well-known and there's probably not a person who will read this review that hasn't already read this book.  I read it as a teenager, but I did so on my own and didn't have the benefit of group discussion to enhance my understanding of the themes and issues explored in this work.  Dana over at So many books, so little time re-reads TKAM every year and that got me thinking.  Along comes Maggie Reads' Southern Reading Challenge, and I had an excuse to bring this one out from the dusty shelves.

Je ne regrette rien.  What a powerful book.  I immediately became absorbed in the main characters -- Jem, Scout, Atticus, and Calpurnia -- as well as some of the townspeople and neighbors.  I fell easily into the tales of carefree childhood summers, pretend play, and "spooky" reclusive neighbors.  I could feel the warm summer evenings and the year-round temperate Alabama climate.  But then, wham!, I was hit with the small-mindedness, hatred, and racism:
"Cry about the simple hell people give other people--without even thinking.  Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they're people, too." (p. 229)

Through brilliant prose, Harper Lee vividly tells the story of a black man on trial for raping a white woman, Atticus' inner strength and determination, the injustice done to the defendant, the varying reactions of the townspeople, and the subsequent events in which justice is finally served.  I'd forgotten how the book got its title, and when I read this part of the book, I found it so apt:
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy ... they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." (p. 103)

If you haven't read this book, you should.  And if you have, you should re-read it -- you'll learn something new every time.

28 / 50 (56.0%)

10,398 / 15,000 (69.3%)