The Optimist's Daughter

 The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty is one of the most aesthetic novellas I've ever read. Laurel Hand, the woman at its center, is the last in her family. Both parents and her husband have died. This seems dramatic as she's only my age, but it's believable in a mid-century world of lower life expectancy and men lost in war. Navigating her grief and dealing with her parents' affairs keep her occupied, but she's dogged by her husband's second wife, a woman her age and one of the great antagonists in all literature. 

I've read several Welty short stories, but this was my first of her longer works. She's a powerful character writer. All of her protagonists are fully formed and rooted in her Southern landscape. They vary wildly, though, in education, race, income, and condition. Sometimes they're absurdly funny; sometimes they're selfish and racist. Here, Laurel is thoughtful, elegant, and courageous in her grace under pressure. 

The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, deservedly. There isn't a word out of place. I found myself rereading several passages purely for their beauty. While not much happens in the plot (a death and a funeral), it reads like an extended personal essay. Grief is an important theme, but the passage of time resonates more completely throughout. There are bitter realizations about loss: the "optimist" in the title is mostly ironic. But the grand shift in the Laurel's understanding ultimately bends towards acceptance.

Saints at the River

 Saints at the River by Ron Rash is a novel that presents a morally ambiguous question. A vacationing girl is swept downriver and tumbles over a waterfall, drowning in the hydraulic behind the cascade. Unable to retrieve her body, her grieving family petitions to temporarily dam the river, an illegal operation as it has been given Wild and Scenic status. This proves controversial, and well-meaning people settle on both sides of the debate (a Christian burial vs. an untouched river). The conclusion is dramatic and tragic. Rash is a good writer and this is an absorbing, complex, and weighty narrative. While the dialogue is weak at times--too utilitarian, too expositive--the characterization is haunting and affecting, and I found myself pondering the events long after finishing the book.

Krakatoa

 Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester is an exhaustive nonfiction account of a big volcano. The Krakatoa eruption was the deadliest in human history. It killed over 36,000 people, mostly from a series of enormous tsunamis. Winchester explores everything around the volcano: plate tectonics, the discovery of plate tectonics, volcanology, animal evolution, Dutch colonialism, Victorian-era communication, Javanese local politics, the rise of Islam, economics, cartography, maritime technology, and on and on. It's too much, actually. The volcano doesn't even erupt until page 234, and by that point I don't know what else there is to possibly learn about the context of this event. Winchester's obsessive attention is made palatable by his easygoing, almost conversational prose. While I think the book probably overstayed its welcome, the writing itself was pleasant and interesting. 

The Return of the Native

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy is an excellent novel. Set in his fictional region of Wessex, and beautifully incorporating the wild countryside ("Egdon Heath"), the story centers on flawed characters in a doomed marriage. Its protagonists--Clym Yeobright and Eustacia Vie--are both fully rounded characters that contain multitudes but share an inability to overcome their tragic flaws. Allowing them to fall in love, the story anticipates Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road or Noah Baumbach's A Marriage Story in its unflinching depiction of domestic decay. Hardy is a tremendous, poetic writer, and The Return of the Native was as rich and realized as his Far from the Madding Crowd. Highest recommendations for this haunting, monumental novel. 

One reason I avoid novels from the nineteenth century is that while the writing is elevated and often beautiful, the plots tend to be convoluted and labyrinthine. This is a function of being serialized. Most of these writers released a chapter at a time in a monthly magazine. The back third of these novels can a rough read, just like seasons three and four of a serialized television show can be rough watches. The writers lose their way. Hardy rarely does this, and he maintains excellence throughout all of The Return of the Native. However, I think he is irritated by the form as well. Late in the novel, two minor characters actually do get happily married. He didn't want this to happen, but he allowed it, and he includes the best author's note I have ever read. I will end this review with Hardy's own words:

"The writer may state here that the original conception of the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and Venn. He was to have retained his isolated and weird character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously from the heath, nobody knowing whither--Thomasin remaining a widow. But certain circumstances of serial publication led to a change of intent. 

Readers can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an austere artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to be the true one."

I like to think that I have an "austere artistic code," but so happy was I with the novel overall that I accept either ending as believable and satisfying--artistically or otherwise.