The Ordways Book

When a reader wants to take a vacation without using any airline miles or scratching the tread off of vehicle tires, read The Ordways by William Humphrey. The Ordways is as clever, charming, and humorous in several parts as parts of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This regionalistic novel also manages to explore the depths, the "back forty," and the universally familiar sides of the human psyche. It's a literary sojourn, lke a work by Henry James with an amount of local flavor equivalent to that in Kate Chopin's fiction. And more, much more.

Maybe more than in the aftermath of any reading I've ever done, I feel as if I've just traveled back in time long enough and realistically enough to fathom and even empathize with those living then, while simultaneously appreciating how much human thinking in those by-gone years is still poignant and relevant today.

If you want evidence of what I say, I'll produce more criticism on The Ordways for you, but you might find some of the existing criticism on The Ordways and on Humphrey not only satisfactory but not too different from my "take" on this excellent novel.