Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

On first being drawn into an expansive world of a new author I generally have for a portal that author's best known, best loved and/or first book. In some cases, and owing to particular circumstances, I might start off on a minor work, willfully transport myself for lack of adequate device, and one-by-one build up my traveling by dimensions; however, by rule of habit a book of literary criticism by an author of fiction is a late point of encampment on a typical excursion. As much as I own to such a convention, I would also make a point to convene on bucking conventions based off of an inner or a social duty.

So, with Eudora Welty I took a different path by first beginning her On Writing and part way through it diverging into her little abode of symbolism, A Worn Path. Having diverged, the trip ahead is planned. I have an idea of what to expect, so many landmarks will not come as surprising as they would or might to an unadvised traveler, but as much must come with this prior expectation the happy fortune to have them exceeded.

Prior to On Writing, I knew of Eudora Welty as a prize-winning author, whose Southern embodiment and human landscape is visible in the rural work of Alice Munro, but it was a nice discovery that found Welty also preceding Munro in temperament and attention as well as she does in subject and the importance of place.

A writer has perhaps picked this up cursorily for practical tips on writing, but an education at that level is not to be located here. That said, there are lessons to be taken carefully and particularly that, I think, are more important - lessons for which Welty is ideal as a teacher. Her writing contains every kind of vibrancy and colour, so that a traveler who takes her up as their guidebook must inevitably and swiftly become seasoned.