The works of Eudora Welty challenge the abilities of the oral reader who wishes to interpret them properly. Her novel, "Losing Battles," requires careful attention to the narrative point of view as a guide to its various dimensions of meaning. The narrative shifts through the consciousnesses of various characters of four generations in a rural Mississippi community. The narrator is not a character in the novel; he stands outside the story, and yet he must convey a sense of participation and also establish time and place with summaries and descriptions. The novel's structure is somewhat elusive in the character study seems to be the controlling factor, but the concept of time also plays an important role in its development. The novel is historical and records detailed events, human sensibilities, emotions, and conflicts, and thus requires that the interpretative reader have extensive background information. The reader who interprets this novel must use his imagination to convey a feeling of its humorous and poignant testimony to human endurance. (RN)