The Ponder Heart Summary and Reviews

The Ponder Heart
by Eudora Welty

The Ponder Heart
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Book Summary Information

Author: Eudora Welty
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1967-10-18
ISBN: 0156729156
Number of pages: 168
Publisher: Mariner Books

Book Reviews of The Ponder Heart

Book Review: "Divinity travels perfectly, if you ever need to know"
Summary: 3 Stars

That's one of the many parenthetical bits of wisdom tossed off by the narrator of The Ponder Heart, Miz Edna Earle Ponder, the youngest daughter of ponderous plantation wealth destined to remain a spinster and care for her batty Uncle Daniel, himself the youngest and last male of a clan that everyone in Clay County, Mississippi reveres and envies. Uncle Daniel has a habit of giving things away out of the innocence of his Ponder Heart, perhaps not a heart of gold but at least a heart of divinity. In case you're city-bred, you should know that divinity isn't a synonym here for Godhood but rather a confection of egg white and corn syrup. You'll find a recipe for it in Joy of Cooking but not in Julia Child.

Honestly, I never liked divinity much as a kid. It's sweet and sticky and full of air, like coagulated cotton candy. And it's a perfect metaphor for this novella, written in the early 1950s when Jim Crow still held court and when the enduring verities of Southern backwardness and isolation were regarded as quaint to the edge of endearing. The skin pigment melanin was equated with sloth and foolishness in Welty's Clay County, while strangers - a euphemism for yankees - were utterly clueless and presumably up to no good. The Ponder Heart is essentially a 150-page shaggy dog story, an elaborate joke that takes its time reaching the punch line. One could choose to read it more seriously, as a depiction of the death throes of the chivalrous 'old order' of Southern society... if one were a literary poobah on the faculty of a state university somewhere... or one could just read it for the laughs. I'd recommend the latter choice.

I must have read something more profound by Eudora Welty way back in my youth, since I've harbored the notion that she was one of the major stars in the firmament of Southern literature. I wish I could remember what. This novella is "no great shakes" even as humor. It's sentimental and affected, and the joke runs thin before it's half told. It seems to me now that Welty is no more than a slick local-colorist, the equivalent in prose of a Norman Rockwell magazine cover. This book at least belongs on the shelf of regional genre writing, alongside Bret Harte, Hamlin Garland, and Garrison Keillor. Even in that category, it isn't a stand-out.

But then, as I said, I'm not partial to sticky sweetness.

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