B 0 0 K S
391
line, "When Laura looked at her plate, the gizzard was gone." This is
not quoted frivolously; indeed, it is rather typical of the kind of climax
the book strives for. Hair ribbons, mosquito netting, filmy dresses are
approached with an unaccountable awe and delight. There is consider–
able charm in the book, but not a trace of wit or even a great deal of
humor. Eudora Welty's extravagantly admired prose has, since she aban–
doned the grotesque, become unbearably girlish. The Fairchilds walk
over "the little iron steps" or "the little bayou bridge" and the girls throw
a
"little coat of peach silk" over their shoulders. Nothing escapes this
genteel euphoria and even the male characters have a rough and tumble
sweetness that is often disconcerting. At one point Miss Welty threatens
to introduce, in Uncle George, the beloved hero of Southern fiction, the
hard, masculine, sensual but sensitive male; but even he is emasculated
by the Fairchild lemonade and his sense of destiny vanishes like smoke
into the great Delta sky. Eudora Welty has perhaps been a bit over–
eager to avoid the tiresome and repetitious propagandism of most con–
temporary Southern fiction. At the moment she is much too far above
the battle.
The Member of the Wedding
is a sketchy little book about the suf–
ferings and loneliness of a twelve year · old girl. In the androgynous
heroine, Frankie, Carson McCullers has done little more than repeat her
picture of adolescent life in
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
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