Morgana: Two Stories from "The Golden Apples"

by Eudora Welty, Mildred Nungester Wolfe (Illustrator)

Two of Welty’s finest stories, “Moon Lake” and “June Recital,” enhanced by twenty black-and-white illustrations by Mildred Nungester Wolfe

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1988

About the author

Eudora Alice Welty was an award-winning American author who wrote short stories and novels about the American South. Her book The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America.

Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived a significant portion of her life in the city's Belhaven neighborhood, where her home has been preserved. She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women (now called Mississippi University for Women), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia Business School. While at Columbia University, where she was the captain of the women's polo team, Welty was a regular at Romany Marie's café in 1930.

During the 1930s, Welty worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration, a job that sent her all over the state of Mississippi photographing people from all economic and social classes. Collections of her photographs are One Time, One Place and Photographs.

Welty's true love was literature, not photography, and she soon devoted her energy to writing fiction. Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. Her work attracted the attention of Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941. The book immediately established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights and featured the legendary and oft-anthologized stories "Why I Live at the P.O.," "Petrified Man," and "A Worn Path." Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In 1992, Welty was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for her lifetime contributions to the American short story, and was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, founded in 1987. In her later life, she lived near Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, where, despite her fame, she was still a common sight among the people of her hometown.
Eudora Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 92, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson.

Excerpted and adopted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Lourdes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lake? Yes. The recital? Hm.
"Moon Lake" is the story of a girl's summer camp by the lake (1920s) under the watchful (let's say) eye of the camp counselor and a brave (really), though somewhat introverted scout as a lifeguard.
Loch Morrison (the same as in the "June recital") watches over the girls' safety here. They feel his eye on them and are aware of his presence. Not only do they see him somewhere overe there under a tree, but they also hear the melody on the trumpet that sets their rhythm of the day. He does his job, observes and stays away from the girls' group (he has pitched his tent away from the campers and he also eats his meals alone).
The camp is attended by self-confident, regularly attending it girls from Morgana town 3 miles away from the campsite and orphans who cannot swim and enter the lake full of anxiety and nervously waiting for the fastest way out. The main characters in this story are Nina, Jinny and Easter.
The two groups show the differences in dressing, perception of the world or other person and behaviour.
What is interesting is the symbolism presented in "The Moon Lake": a trumpet, a musical instrument belonging to the lifeguard and his intensive attempt to help one of the girls. It is worth to personally explore more deeply their meaning.
This short story written in 1947 was initially rejected by several magazines, but two years later it appeared in a collection that is still considered a standard of the author's work.
The action of the first of the two short stories also takes place in Morgan, a fictional town in Mississippi. Virgie Rainey is a 16-year-old girl who meets secretly with her boyfriend in an abandoned house owned by Mr MacLain. Loch peeks her out from his window, being chained to bed because of malaria. He is as anxious as the girl he is watching and sneaks out of the bedroom through the window and hangs on a branch of a neighbouring tree. He eavesdrops on what is happening in that house, even though the content is not entirely understandable to the little boy.
At the very beginning, Miss Ekhart, a German woman teaching piano, having a severe appearance and temperament, arrives at the house next door. She taught Virgie, among others, and in this way events from the present and the past intertwine, because the house we are observing now has a grim history.
These two pieces come from the collection "The golden apples". Although you can come across in reviews, personal opinions or dissertations with statements such as: The June Recital, the outstanding work of Eudora Welta, I do not necessarily agree with it. It is not that the text is poor. It is not. For me, the plot of "The Recital..." is overwhelming, even intricate and inaccessible. The background of the characters mentioned in the book were falling apart in my head, were getting lost in the course of reading, and as a result I could not imagine them, either their look or character.
Nevertheless, the figures of Loch and his older sister defended themselves. The scenes with them opened a window to the world of childhood and teenage age.
I recommend the works of this writer because, although I liked only the second title out of these two, I already know what to expect and this is the kind of plot, the kind of character that makes reading exciting (I recall the magic she cast through her exquisite descriptions, expressions...). I don't like contemporary literature, so I was happy to look at the lot of people in this book (I had similar impressions, feelings when reading Erskine Caldwell's "Tragic Ground", which he wrote at a similar time). How is it going to be with her other stories? After "The Moon Lake" I do want more.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book titled: "Morgana", a mythical location in Mississippi is created by the author to tell two stories; the first story is titled "June Recital" which takes place in the 1920's and centers around a piano teacher named Miss Eckhart, who is eventually judged insane and Virgie Rianey, her star student and subsequent bad girl.

The second story in the book is titled "Moon Lake", also located in Morgana, Mississippi. Here, the author tells a story depicting various events that occur at a Girls summer camp during the early 1940's.

I found both stories somewhat difficult to read as in my opinion, the author is excessively descriptive and creates too many imaginary scenes. These two issues distracted me from the gist of the stories and I was seriously tempted to close the cover and move on. However, I persevered till the end where the author's "Afterword"; which is not only clearly readable, it is a joy to read. It is like reading the works of two different writers.

[Cathy Houston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miss Welty spinning Mississippi tales as only she can

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wanted to read something by this author. This discourages me from reading any more of hers.