Loading...
110th out of 395 books
—
812 voters
My rating:
add to my books
Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America)
The library of America is dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as the "finest-looking, longest-lasting editions ever made" (The New Republic), Library of America volumes make a fine gift for any occasion. Now, with exactly one hundred volumes to choose from, there ...more
Hardcover, 1281 pages
Published
September 1st 1988
by Library of America
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,762)
I'm "taking" the Yale Open Course in The American Novel Since 1945 (http://oyc.yale.edu/english/american-nov...), and "Wise Blood" is one of the readings. It tells of Hazel Motes, a young man from Tennessee recently returned to the South after several years of fighting overseas. His grandfather was a preacher, and people keep believing he is one. When he does preach, it's outside of movie theaters, and is for the Church Without Christ.
My favorite part is when a m...more
My favorite part is when a m...more
I like Southern writers. Don't really know why. Maybe I just gravitate toward dialects, oppression, freakish humor, madness, and deeply (but beautifully) flawed people. Shall Flannery O'Connor be the answer I've been waiting for, to Faulkner and McCullers?
Anyway I'm two short stories and one novel in (A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Everything that Rises Must Converge, Wise Blood) and yes, I do think I've taken a shining to this Flannery woman.
Awesome. Full review(s) later!
Anyway I'm two short stories and one novel in (A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Everything that Rises Must Converge, Wise Blood) and yes, I do think I've taken a shining to this Flannery woman.
Awesome. Full review(s) later!
This certainly was a load of a book. I don’t have a problem with the writing which is pretty good or the content of the stories. But I don’t think any of her writing is insightful or intelligent. She knows how to hide her lack of insight. That’s a talent, I guess.
Her style reminds me of that family member prone to box wine who has mastered the way to tell a story without ever having experienced life for himself; slow and meandering in their rendering of the story that usually sounds ...more
Her style reminds me of that family member prone to box wine who has mastered the way to tell a story without ever having experienced life for himself; slow and meandering in their rendering of the story that usually sounds ...more
view all 18 comments
She's a bit too much like Mel Gibson, with her Catholic narcissism. "A Good Man is Hard to Find," is good enough to ignore her, "Only good Roman Catholics have god's blessing," attitude. She admits to writing about Protestants because use Catholicism would have been heretical. If she would have used Jewish or Muslim faiths she would have very harsh criticism but I guess back-slapping Protestants (sarcasm) is OK. You can see in her letters that she finally figures out the Pro...more
Tasha Cotter
added it
I love books about small towns and the south. This collection is in my opinion the best book of short stories out there. This collection also contains letters to and from Flannery, which are fascinating. I love this book.
I finished Wise Blood, and I'm now reading some of her letters...For Wise Blood, it's the kind of book you admire, but it requires work and thought and wasn't pure pleasure for me. What I like about it is that it is trying to say something, something big, something existential. Haze Motes character is not as someone else pointed out to O'Connor himself believable as a full human being. She agreed with that. I agree with that too. But it seems to me this book is more of an allegory--you know as y...more
Flannery O'Connor was required reading for those of us raised in the south. I checked out this book to see if I would like her stories as much as I had in the past. If I were reading entirely for pleasure, I'm not sure that I would have gotten very far into the book. The Southern Gothic style is not for everyone, and her characters are not necessarily likable. Most stories revolve around the character's flaws, but also combine with shocking experiences. The stories tend to stick in your hea...more
Flannery O’Connor writes about misfits. These misfits come up against ordinary folk who generally have a character flaw – naivete, the inability to act, or the inability to judge other people’s characters – so the ordinary folk generally lose out, whether they end up having an artificial limb stolen or lying dead in the woods.
O’Connor is a devout Catholic, however, and in one of the essays later in the volume, she explains her method: “The novelist with Christian concerns will find in...more
O’Connor is a devout Catholic, however, and in one of the essays later in the volume, she explains her method: “The novelist with Christian concerns will find in...more
Stupendous undertaking of one of the greatest artists of our time. This cannot be passed up. This is the "collected works" of course, so I would not expect everyone to rush out and spend the $40 for this volume, but you might consider getting a copy of "The Violent Bear It Away" and "Wise Blood" at least, for starters, if you're not acquainted with Flan. I believe truly there is more under the hood with Ms O'Connor than is currently understood, and with time her ...more
I was really excited to receive this for Christmas this year. Don't know which bookshelf to put it on though as it's 1,300 pages long and I only plan to pick up between other books for a L-A-T (Long Ass Time).
I was turned onto her because I read Truman Copote's complete short stories last year. Southern writers seem to have a lot of things to say by talking about other things. The weather is warm, life is sweet and everyone is both poor and freaks. Much of both of these autho...more
I was turned onto her because I read Truman Copote's complete short stories last year. Southern writers seem to have a lot of things to say by talking about other things. The weather is warm, life is sweet and everyone is both poor and freaks. Much of both of these autho...more
Jeannine
added it
I reread the short story A Good Man is Hard to Find, and I know it has some other meaning besides what is presented at face value, and I appreciate O'Connor's gifts, but the story is not (for lack of a better word) entertaining. I felt tense reading it, the ending is unsettling and sad. Reading her stories seems like very hard work, like doing a job you don't really want to do.
I also read the first chapter of her novel Wise Blood, but didn't finish.
I admire her as an ar...more
I also read the first chapter of her novel Wise Blood, but didn't finish.
I admire her as an ar...more
I have so little time for thoughtful review; instead, I opt for a series of favorite passages from each book; (my apologies to authors everywhere for confounding intent by taking these out of context!) -
"There is another reason in the Southern situation that makes for a tendency toward the grotesque and this is the prevalence of good Southern writers. I think the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. When there are many writers all employing the sale id...more
"There is another reason in the Southern situation that makes for a tendency toward the grotesque and this is the prevalence of good Southern writers. I think the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. When there are many writers all employing the sale id...more
Flannery O'Connor takes us into the lives of such strange people. Each time I read an O'Connor, I find myself wondering how she does it--how she brings to light the fallibilities, the ugliness, the ignorance, the hopelessness, the stark and harsh reality of such twisted characters. I come away disturbed and grateful and filled to the brim with questions. Her body of work is amazing. This collection is a must read.
Another book and another author about whom I feel unqualified to say much, so I will leave it thusly: it has been a good few years since I encountered an author whose work I felt compelled to read again and, very likely, again and again. I sense an endless amount of ideas I could take from these stories each time through. I would return to it now if circumstances would allow.
As for the edition, I can't imagine another preferable to this. It contains everything she published and a ...more
As for the edition, I can't imagine another preferable to this. It contains everything she published and a ...more
I only read The Violent Bear It Away, but the website wants me to use this "collected" edition to put this on my shelf.
This is pretty obviously a Novel of Ideas, but the story drew me along nonetheless. I think I might decide I liked it better the more I think about it, so perhaps I'll amend this review in the future. For now, I'd recommend it as a relatively easy read, for a Novel of Ideas...
This is pretty obviously a Novel of Ideas, but the story drew me along nonetheless. I think I might decide I liked it better the more I think about it, so perhaps I'll amend this review in the future. For now, I'd recommend it as a relatively easy read, for a Novel of Ideas...
Sui generis. I think it was Harold Bloom who said that O'Connor, in her best writing, is trying to terrorize the reader into a state of grace. I think that's about right. O'Connor is a good example of how possessing a rather outlandish, Manichean world-view (by secular, modern standards) as well as some somewhat dogmatic beliefs can make for some fantastic, obsessive and rather frightening story-telling. (Another example of such a writer is Dostoevsky, that conservative and pious traditional...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Okay, so I only read a few short stories in this. They were all excellent: beautifully drawn characters with sticky conflicts and problems that they would read and address a psychologically consistent manner that nevertheless always seems wrong. While each individual story held my attention with its prose and rhythms, I never really felt a drive to keep reading. This just feels like a writer who I'm not reading at the right time.
I have reviewed the content of this volume in the individual O'Connor titles on my list, but I will add that this book contains a valuable chronology of O'Connor's life by her good friend Sally Fitzgerald (it has a few errors but it is still a fine overview). The book also includes some letters from O'Connor that were not included in the published correspondence, The Habit of Being.
Flannery O'Connor is a shock-jock. She writes powerful, twisted, decadent stories about warped, exaggerated, monstrous people committing extreme actions. Although the stories are set in the south I am sure freaks can be found in every part of the world.
It would help if you read "Mystery and Manners" if you are having trouble understanding Flannery O'Connors works...She explains her art very well in this collection of notes from her speeches, essays and/or talks that she gave.
Out of this book, i read A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything that Rises Must Converge. I like A Good Man is Hard to Find because the plot was interesting and it had a lot of irony. I didn't like the second story much.
I will not explain Flannery O'Connor. You must read Flannery O'Connor, because your life will be better.
(Even the letters are worth reading, and you cannot say that about everyone whose letters are published.)
(Even the letters are worth reading, and you cannot say that about everyone whose letters are published.)
Right now I am dithering on her writing...She's got only two stars because her subject matter is akin to lifting boxes filled with lead: they're heavy and there is something in them, but you're not sure you need it. 5 stars for writing, 2 for content.
I am familiar with O'Connor and really enjoy her sense of humor and her insight. I just finished "Wise Blood" and honestly am struggling with it, but am really enjoying "A good Man is Hard to Find."
a good collection. my favorite story being the king of the birds about her experience raising peacocks. but the best quote of the book has to be "I had to have my picture taken for the purposes of harcourt brace. they we are all bad (the pictures). the one I sent looked as if I had just bitten my grandmother and that this was one of my few pleasures, but all the rest were worse."
I finally understand Flannery O'Connor. Sort of. :) I still don't like the deathly endings of her stories, but I did love "Revelation" and "A Late Encounter With the Enemy."
The writing style of Flannery O'Connor awakens the reader with its felicity. Miss O'Connor imagination takes over from there and the ride is a wild one. Wise Blood, the first work in this collection, is a nightmarish take on the world of southern itenerant preachers. Hazel Motes' Church without Christ is a bleakly humorous approach to the whole god/man situation and Motes own psychology is worth studying through rereadings of this short work. The collections of short fiction underscore the a...more
Flannery O'Connor is an American treasure. Her stories of flawed eccentrics are wonderful examples of American Southern Literature. A Good Man is Hard to Find is sad and funny and I laugh every time I read it.
My comments on these books appear in my review of Brad Gooch's
Flannery here: http://exploringfictions.blogspot.com/20...
Flannery here: http://exploringfictions.blogspot.com/20...
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Readers Also Enjoyed
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. O'Connor's writing often reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.
Her The Complete Stories received the 1972 National Book Award for Fiction. In a 2009 online poll conducted by the National Book Foundation, the collection was named the best work to h...more
More about Flannery O'Connor...
Her The Complete Stories received the 1972 National Book Award for Fiction. In a 2009 online poll conducted by the National Book Foundation, the collection was named the best work to h...more
Share This Book
2 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
—
126 people liked it
“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”
—
19 people liked it
More quotes…
