What do You think about The Robber Bridegroom (1978)?
This book started slow for me because it seemed like a book about people who do stupid things. However, it's more than that and Welty proves to have a fine sense of the absurd. Did I get belly laughs out of this? No. But I did get a few snorts out of it. The more one reads, the more nuances drift through it like mists along the Natchez Trace. A mist set with barbs. It's the sort of book where one gets to the end and suspects that rereading with what one knows now would yield new insights. And at the end, I wondered why this isn't a classic. Certainly if The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a classic, this should be. While it's not purely original since it borrows from Grimm's fairytale and from the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche (and there's an illusion to Sleeping Beauty), it is purely American with what has done with all of these inherited immigrant tales. It is a melting pot, a literary gumbo of sorts, and thus perfectly American. Nothing remains the same and yet alludes wryly to the original. The twists are often sassy or absurd or painfully true. Is this my favorite book? No. But it's worth reading and I'll keep it on my shelf. I'll recommend it to people who are astute, critical readers of literature. And if I were teaching a lit class, it would provide much for discussion.
—Jen
What a treat this little book is! An adult fairy tale with a twist, Welty, inspired (I assume) somewhat not only by her homeland, but by the Brothers Grimm themselves, tells the tale of Jamie Lockhart; a charismatic outlaw terrorising the population of deepest darkest Mississpi with his band of thieves, and Rosamund Musgrow; a completely innocent and utterly stupid young woman who wanders the countryside in her expensive silk gown, blissfully unaware of her evil stepmothers' burning desire to get rid of her for good. Stepmothers do get a bad press in fairy tales don't they?Against an atmospheric backdrop populated by legendary figures from the place and period, Jamie Lockhart claims Rosamund as his own (quite literally) and whisks her off into the sunset to live as his 'robber bride'. This is a dark, poetic and completely unreal short(ish) story, written in an authentic voice and chock full of twists, turns and tricks. Drawing inspiration from traditions and tales far older than herself, Welty has written something truly unique. Something I rarely stumble across nowadays...http://relishreads.blogspot.com/
—Literary Relish
I'd been meaning to cover this gap in my Southern writer reading for a while. I meant to pick up Welty's short stories, but I couldn't find her complete works, and a Grimm's fairy tale retold with a southern folklore twist was too tempting to pass up. The book surprised me with how well the folkloric southern setting worked; there is no incongruity with the fairy-tale tone of the characters or plot: castle's and princesses work just as well as plantations and plantation heiresses (though the nonchalant references to slaves as forms of wealth might rub some people the wrong way). The book also inspired me to learn more about some of the historical sources for certain characters, such as the Harp brothers and Mike Fink. The novel's length is also a benefit, since a longer novel might strain my ability to engage with fairly one-dimensional fairy tale characters.
—Lane
