Rating: 
Summary: Song of the South
Review: As a lifelong Southern girl, I find that there are three authors who can fully unveil the truth about the south: Shelby Foote, William Faulkner, and Miss Eudora Welty. This book beautifully tells the story of Laura McRaven, a young girl visiting her deceased mother's family in the Mississippi delta, ostensibly to attend Cousin Dabney's wedding. Miss Welty has a true gift for evoking the smells, tastes, and sounds of the rural south. You will feel that you have spent the summer with the Fairchild clan. Not to be missed as a benchmark in southern literature. Yankees will vow to move south.
Rating:
Summary: Lush, slow southern writing at its best
Review: Eudora Welty scored big-time with this dreamy, humid, dense (HUGE cast of characters), meandering but otherwise very simple story of a young girl, a cousin, whose mother has recently died. She's shipped off for the summer to the 'plantation' home of her mother's sister and a never-ending list of cousins and aunts and great aunts and boyfriends and husbands and and and and.
Nothing much happens, but we're treated to a leisurely piece of writing in all the intoxicating cadences of southern drawl, sweet as mint tea and magnolia blossoms.
A beautiful southern classic.
Rating: 
Summary: And You Thought Weddings Weren't That Deep...
Review: Eudory Welty has created a world as hazy and ephemeral as a hot Southern afternoon. Characters and events emerge and dissipate in this novel like heat waves. There are recurring images, thoughts, and events that the characters always try but never quite succeed in understanding fully, only ravelling and unravelling. A langorous pall exists throughout, holding in tension the urge to unravel . There is so much unfathomable symbolism here, that I can't be sure if Welty is depicting the unravellable nature of the human brain or if she's just over my head. Oh, yeah -- and some folks get married.
Rating:
Summary: Song of the South
Review: I do have to admit that Eudora Welty is one of the best writer's as far as capturing the complexities of human emotions and interactions. The way she wrote made me feel sympathy for the characters at times, and a sense that I know what they are going through at others. She has brought them to life so beautifully that there is probably a character to relate to anybody who picks up the book.(Which is very possible due to a LONG list of characters.) As I read the book I could see biogrpahical bits and pieces of her own memories which she remembered so descriptively. The description of the Delta causes you to feel so familiar with it that you may as well just live there. I can just picture the open, treeless fields and the little rivers. She also kept a hopeful outlook for relationships throughout the book, as I read would it would be from many critics, but I could not possibly believe when I found out that Robbie left George. Also, her common themes about love being freedom from isolation, social prejudice, and convention were all displayed in the book, whether vaguely or bright and apparent. The book was hard to read at times due to the fact that some of the chapters were so long. It was hard for me to sit down and read a whole chapter at a time, but that was the only drawback. Overall, the book was well-written and anybody who can relate to the irony of family get-togethers will enjoy reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Here it is, Mrs. McWain!
Review: I do have to admit that Eudora Welty is one of the best writer's as far as capturing the complexities of human emotions and interactions. The way she wrote made me feel sympathy for the characters at times, and a sense that I know what they are going through at others. She has brought them to life so beautifully that there is probably a character to relate to anybody who picks up the book.(Which is very possible due to a LONG list of characters.) As I read the book I could see biogrpahical bits and pieces of her own memories which she remembered so descriptively. The description of the Delta causes you to feel so familiar with it that you may as well just live there. I can just picture the open, treeless fields and the little rivers. She also kept a hopeful outlook for relationships throughout the book, as I read would it would be from many critics, but I could not possibly believe when I found out that Robbie left George. Also, her common themes about love being freedom from isolation, social prejudice, and convention were all displayed in the book, whether vaguely or bright and apparent. The book was hard to read at times due to the fact that some of the chapters were so long. It was hard for me to sit down and read a whole chapter at a time, but that was the only drawback. Overall, the book was well-written and anybody who can relate to the irony of family get-togethers will enjoy reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: an exceptional portrait of southern life
Review: I first bought this book a year ago, seeing it laying on a table of "recommended books" at [a store] and thinking to myself that it sounded intriguing. I got home, opened it up and....put it down w/in ten minutes. Being somewhat widely read, this does not often happen to me, but I admit I found this book at first utterly boring. However, a few days ago, I decided to try again and this time I opened up the book-and kept reading. The story draws you in slowly, until you feel you are present in shellmound, sitting in the settee in the corner watching this all take place. The setting description was vividly realistic, the characters believable. The characters ARE the plot line: the novel unfolds through the eyes of both outsiders (ellen and laura) and also through the eyes of the fairchilds themselves [in the forms of shelley and dabney]. This thought provoking narrative of a large and intricately woven Southern family is brought to life through the evocative words of eudora welty, and stays in the heart long after the last page is turned.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautifully constructed novels I've read!
Review: I had to read this for a Lit of the American South class I'm taking for my M.A. I read it in two days with a study guide close at hand as well as several background articles on Welty. I'm grateful for the additional materials, but even without them I know I would have found much to praise in this book. When I first started to read, my professor suggested compiling a list of characters and their relationships in order to assist in keeping everyone straight. This was excellent advice and allowed me to read without getting too bogged down in character names and trying to figure out who was allied with whom, etc etc. The novel is ostensibly a portrait of one Southern family. On a broader perspective, one can view it as a deconstruction of the American South with its age-old social structures and isolationism. But it can also be taken on a much more universal level. Anyone who has ever felt like an outsider in any milieu will relate to Ellen Fairchild, Laura McEvern, and Robbie Reid. Families across the world aren't so different. Robbie's statement in the novel's climax: "I didn't marry into them, I married George!" is, I thought, particularly insightful. I honestly can't praise this book enough. It has inspired me to want to read more of Welty's work as well as other great Southern writers. An excellent introduction... In some ways, perhaps in structure and narrative tone, it reminded me of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Again, this is one of the greatest books I have ever read! Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Pure drudgery
Review: I must admit I have not yet finished Delta Wedding. If I do, it will be by sheer force of will. It is a laborious read. Nothing has drawn me into this book and the authors run-on style is tiresome and confusing. I often have to re-read a long convoluted sentence and then ask myself, "Just what is she trying to say?" I realize I am in the minority, but this book is not the least bit enjoyable to read.
Rating:
Summary: A richly drawn evocation of a simple family wedding
Review: On its surface, "Delta Wedding" is a story about the preparations for a wedding by a Southern clan. As one of the characters remarks, the family takes "you in circles, whirling delightedly about [but} nothing really so very much happened." Anyone expecting a page-turner about plantation life or a thickly plotted potboiler will surely be disappointed. Instead, you must be willing to believe that "old stories, family stories, Mississippi stories [are] the same as very holy or very passionate." The plot, such as it is, is simple: the extended Fairchild family reunites for a wedding, and everyone brings their dreams, memories, grudges, and intrigues. As with any "typical" family reunion, there is a pervasive threat of scandal that never quite pans out, and several petty incidents get blown out of proportion by the affected characters. The sheer number of kinfolk can be overwhelming at times, but they are clearly delineated (although it must be said that the black servants rarely transcend stereotype, which is undoubtedly an accurate portrayal of how a rich Southern family would have viewed the help). Welty's drawling humor gives the narrative much warmth and vitality; her ability to switch perspective seamlessly from one character to the next is truly without equal. All in all, Welty writes beautifully of familial relations and social manners; she can truly be considered the Jane Austen of the South.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointment
Review: Reading "Delta Wedding" is like attending a family wedding and meeting all your distant relatives for the first time. You have a sense of belonging and, at the same time, a sense of being an outsider. Everyone seems to know everyone so much better than you do and you're rushing to catch up on everyone's story and sort out who is who. This is a relatively short book, but perhaps because she is primarily a short-story writer, Eudora Welty has packed this book so densely with character and detail, you will feel as though you have read a family saga of many hundred pages. The delta is recreated in such detail that you can feel the humid, misty breezes and hear the crickets chirping. The young girls through whose perspective you watch the proceedings are enchanting. Struggling to keep track of the characters forced me to go back and re-read parts of the book at times, which was, in fact, helpful in discovering important overlooked details. This is a book you can re-read many times always discovering something or someone new. Eudora Welty ranks at the very top of Southern writers and American writers in general.
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