April 5, 2011 Faulkner and Welty home tours
Today was our “literary” day as we toured both William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak house in Oxford where he and his family lived from 1930-1962 (his death) and Eudora Welty’s home in downtown Jackson. Diane Weber joined us for the Faulkner tour.
Rowan Oak is quite near Courthouse Square but located at the end of a lovely stand of cedar trees leading up to the front porch of a white two storey columned Greek revival house. It seems a little shabby as one might imagine Miss Emily Grierson’s house looked in his famous story “A Rose for Emily,” about a necrophiliac old spinster, but inside the furnishings are well preserved and rather formal, giving an aura of a stately bygone era. We spoke with an Ole Miss graduate student in history who showed us photos of the rural area surrounding the Faulkner home during the 1960s—which might as well have been taken decades earlier since the life of cotton picking appeared still very primitive. And we discussed more Faulkner family history revealed by Faulkner’s niece, Dean Faulkner Wells, his last remaining relative who knew him in person, in a new memoir. During our brief stay in Oxford we discovered a really active writers’ and literary community—many writers pass through the town to give homage to its most famous resident and many writers, including Jimmy Buffet, have gotten their start at Dean Faulkner Wells kitchen table.
By mid-day we were on Highway 55 heading south to Jackson. Bright blue skies and bright green woods whizzed by us. All day we saw graceful white and pink dogwoods blooming as well as late azaleas, iris and may other spring flowers. Welty’s home is surrounded by a lovely garden, restored to its appearance during the time Eudora and her mother tended it. We had a private tour—two guides for two of us—through her house, now converted to a museum, which preserves each room just as it was when she lived and wrote there, books literally covering every flat surface. Welty entertained many friends at home throughout her life, but she also traveled widely and collected artifacts and paintings from her trips. Seeing where and how she lived made us want to dip back into her fiction and her autobiography to notice where and how she integrates her sense of place into her writing.
All too soon the literary part of our trip is over, but we’re looking forward to reuniting with family members in Birmingham tomorrow.
Laura and Beth,
ReplyDeleteHow much of Faulkner's work was based in Oxford? Was he associated with the University? All of the spring flowers remind me of what a special time of year this is in the south - and how different a look and feel that anywhere else.
Does MS strike you as different in any ways from other parts of the deep south...Alabama, Georgia?
We're loving your posts.
p
Hi P,
ReplyDeleteI don't think Faulkner was really associated with the University himself. Almost all his fiction is set in and around Oxford in the fictional county he called "Yoknapatawpha." Yes, the South is soooo beautiful in the spring! We did find Mississippi much more rural and less developed than other states in the mid-south and also Jackson is a sleepy town compared to active, B'ham where the medical center has really contributed to recent growth.