002 The Optimist's Daughter

Pockets of stress since I woke up. Urgent things at the part-time job, driving in traffic, but the cherry was emailing my prof to report that my draft is not ready for today's deadline. "End of the month!" I said.

As a treat then, I'll start The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty this evening. It won the 1973 Pulitzer prize (the P is always chosen among work published the previous year). Here is the version I'm reading:

Welty, Eudora. The Optimist's Daughter. New York: Random House, 1972.

I've never heard of the author or book before but chose it for the title and because I like female authors. The other book I borrowed today was Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow. Sounds boring doesn't it?

I took out books on these books. Humboldt's Gift made me do it. Cringing after flipping through that book, I decided to skim what others say before condemning it. And just in case OD is a drag I better get a book on it as well.

Sometimes books are boring because I don't know the context or miss the cultural references of the time. Maybe these crits will help place these books. But don't expect indepth analysis here. I get enough of a work out just thinking about my draft.