The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's monumental contribution to American fiction. There are thirty-o...
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Oct 08, 2011
Tyler
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How would you feel if you emptied your garbage can on the floor, searching through the contents for a valuable you were sure was lost there, only to end up with muck on your hands? That's how I felt after reading a collection of the author's short stories.
With a few adjustments for technology and history, the characters depicted in story after story are mostly ordinary, modern Americans. In fact, the author's benighted rookery of dim-wits and out-and-out idiots finds its voice today More...
With a few adjustments for technology and history, the characters depicted in story after story are mostly ordinary, modern Americans. In fact, the author's benighted rookery of dim-wits and out-and-out idiots finds its voice today More...
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Jun 01, 2008
Allen
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Before I begin, let me say this: by no means is Flannery O'Conner a bad writer. She knows her quite very well. But there is a major beef I have with her stories: the repetition. Of course, some stories a true gems ("A Good man is Hard to Find", "The River"), but after making my way through about a third of the stories, the same themes started reappearing with the same type of deffiecent characters and the same kinds of endings.
That is not to say they aren't enjoya More...
That is not to say they aren't enjoya More...
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Sep 29, 2007
Baiocco
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Although I wouldn't give this collection 5 stars reading it from cover to cover (the stories get a little repetitive) Flannery O'Connor is one of the most gifted short story writers of any time period. How can she make the human condition so haunting? Its like, each story operates on O'Connor's ability to know exactly what will make her characters happy and what will absolutely devestate them. Read "Good Country People" for a prime example, as a hope-for-love filled amputee allows
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Dec 17, 2009
Jim
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Do yourself a favor, treat yourself. If you've never read The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, read it now. If you have, read it again. Winner of the 1971 National Book Award, these are mighty strange stories of broken people in a fallen world: hermaphrodites who proclaim themselves visible, inscrutable sign of God; physically maimed men and women, tormented by spirits and passions they can't fathom; landowners, proletarian whites and Jim Crow blacks colluding in nameless, unspeakable guil
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Jan 28, 2008
Alexa
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Every one of these stories leaves its main character in a complete sense of doom, but there's more to it than that. There's a spiritual revelation or rebirth in the midst the character's painful stupor. What I love about these endings is that as painful as that character's state of mind is at the end, they're also seeing things more clearly and truthfully than they ever have in their life--and it's undeniably beautiful, no matter how painful the situation happens to be. And boy does she know h
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Feb 05, 2008
Ron
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I wondered going through some of the stories here, might we not learn more about the southern character today from reading Ms. O'Connor's stories than we would reading the newspapers, hearing peoples' soundbites on TV--even though her stories were written half a century ago?
You see we don't see political correctness, or hardly, on the part of her characters. In the south, even after integration on public transportation, for example, if a large cross-section of fairly well-to-do white More...
You see we don't see political correctness, or hardly, on the part of her characters. In the south, even after integration on public transportation, for example, if a large cross-section of fairly well-to-do white More...
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May 29, 2007
Chris
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O'Connor's art is purgatory. It reveals human sin-- no euphemism will suit here-- in all its pettiness and ugliness. Its sinners always receive their just reward, but without the benefit of illusion.
As in Dante, purgatory is worse than hell; and as in Dante, it always points toward paradise. Everyone here is so sick that the reader must have God's own vision to see any possible healing-- for the characters, or for herself (since the American Christians and intellectuals who make u More...
As in Dante, purgatory is worse than hell; and as in Dante, it always points toward paradise. Everyone here is so sick that the reader must have God's own vision to see any possible healing-- for the characters, or for herself (since the American Christians and intellectuals who make u More...
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Mar 26, 2009
Curt
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im not sure how i hear about this woman but if you like short stories pick this up. she writes like no one ive ever read, but i dont read much so that isnt saying much. If your interested in post WWII race relations you gotta read this. its intense.
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Dec 16, 2009
Kristin
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I did enjoy reading and discussing some of the short stories by Flannery O'Conner. I think Flannery would be disappointed if she didn't offend me a little...she did especially in the cold-blood murder that ended "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." I read that story before bed...oops! I had to read another book to feel better before I could sleep. All of Flannery O'Conner's stories center on themes revolving around race, and getting beneath the surface of people. These stories made for go
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Jun 03, 2009
Josh
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Flannery O'Connor was a genius; her multi-layered stories demand multiple readings and span the range from satirically hysterical to violently dark. A native Georgian, all of O'Connor's stories are set in the rural South and have a religious under-current to them, yet what O'Connor has to say about faith may surprise you … My all-time favourite author.
Though all the stories are astounding, I’d most highly recommend the following:
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Everything More...
Though all the stories are astounding, I’d most highly recommend the following:
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Everything More...
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Nov 04, 2008
I use this as a text book on the short story. "Good Country People" is arguably the best short story in the language--and that includes "Young Goodman Brown" (Hawthorne), "Bartleby the Scrivener" (Melville), and "The Real Thing." (James). "Revelation", "Greenleaf", Parker's Back", "A Good Man is Hard to Find", "The Life You Save May Be Your Own"--these are all anthologized now. I can think of no other writer
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Dec 26, 2011
Margie
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O'Connor had a gift for creating characters with flaws, quirks, and biases instantly recognizable from real life, despite the fact that she exaggerated them to magnify their humorous absurdities. Her best-loved stories are unified by an uncanny balance of cruelty toward and compassion for her characters. Horrible, senseless, unexpected things often happen to these people, but we can't help being amused because, for the most part, we feel they deserve their fates. O'Connor is especially savage in
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Sep 04, 2011
Michelle
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Some readers complain of a repetition of themes in O'Connor, but I think you'll find that repetition in the body of work of many writers as they try to puzzle out and understand what worries them. O'Connor, a devout Catholic in the deeply Protestant Georgia, a highly educated single woman with a chronic and ultimately fatal illness, posessor of a fierce mind, was an outsider in more ways than I can count. Her gender and time (publishing in the 1950s and early 1960s) only emphasize the revolution
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Mar 03, 2011
Introduction
Flannery O’Connor was a very accomplished writer during her day. She was a very determined Catholic writer who believed in herself. She was strongly opinionated and went for what she wanted in life. After her father’s death, she branched out and graduated high school and college where she then published essays, letters, short stories, and novels. She won many awards for her works and accomplished all of her goals, except her last novel. The death of her illness kept More...
Flannery O’Connor was a very accomplished writer during her day. She was a very determined Catholic writer who believed in herself. She was strongly opinionated and went for what she wanted in life. After her father’s death, she branched out and graduated high school and college where she then published essays, letters, short stories, and novels. She won many awards for her works and accomplished all of her goals, except her last novel. The death of her illness kept More...
Jun 02, 2010
Matt
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O'Connor is literary "shock and awe" in the best sense of the metaphor. She pitted herself against what she called "pious trash." She is also one of the best anti-dotes to trashy-trash nihilism that I know of.
She writes so convincingly about what biographer Ralph Wood calls "the Christ-haunted South." The characters are almost tangible to the imagination. As I read I became convinced that I knew people like this whether it was true or not. This happened More...
She writes so convincingly about what biographer Ralph Wood calls "the Christ-haunted South." The characters are almost tangible to the imagination. As I read I became convinced that I knew people like this whether it was true or not. This happened More...
May 20, 2010
Matthew
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When you discover something special it tends to stick with you for a long time. This is what happened when I first read Flannery O'Connor. In college I was first acquainted with O'Connor and her short story "Good Country People". My professor provided a brief bio of her life from her battle with lupus to her comic drawings in her early career. The story instantly connected with me. It was grotesque, funny, tragic, and it haunted me after I read it. The ambiguity is something I at first
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Apr 17, 2010
Adam
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Rural literature can be incredible, like any sort of literature can. Guy Vanderhaeghe is stunning, Faulkner's amazing, and there's generally a lot of good literature from the American South and from rural Canada, etc. I love Westerns, I like a lot of Southern Gothic, etc. etc.
The Canadian stuff is a lot more appealing to me. In Canada, it seems like even the most urban of city residents has a sort of connection to more rural areas of Canada. Our relationship to the Canadian outdoors i More...
The Canadian stuff is a lot more appealing to me. In Canada, it seems like even the most urban of city residents has a sort of connection to more rural areas of Canada. Our relationship to the Canadian outdoors i More...
Sep 23, 2009
Lisa
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The All-Seeing Gaze of Mrs. Freeman: Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People from “The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor”
I was smug when I first met the gaze of Mrs. Freeman, she with her “forward expression” that was “steady and driving like the advance of a heavy truck.” (271)
Obviously, I thought, O’Connor has presented me with a mule of a character--a prideful, simple woman who “could never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point.” The story be More...
I was smug when I first met the gaze of Mrs. Freeman, she with her “forward expression” that was “steady and driving like the advance of a heavy truck.” (271)
Obviously, I thought, O’Connor has presented me with a mule of a character--a prideful, simple woman who “could never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point.” The story be More...
Dec 09, 2010
Charley
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Flannery O'Connor, the most impressive female American writer to date. After reading--and often being forced to re-read--her stories, all others pale in their comparatively 2-D characterizations and cheesy, pathetically censured plot lines. This woman moves.
To be an enthusiast of the artistry of short stories and not totally exalt O'Connor as a force of nature in the field would be blasphemous. When reading Flannery, don't be afraid to look up interpretations of her stories and totally More...
To be an enthusiast of the artistry of short stories and not totally exalt O'Connor as a force of nature in the field would be blasphemous. When reading Flannery, don't be afraid to look up interpretations of her stories and totally More...
Feb 15, 2010
Charky
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I am so very intrigued by Flannery O'Connor as a person after reading all of her short stories. I mean, what kind of a woman comes up with the macabre scenarios that make up her stories? I wouldn't go so far as to say they are "horror" stories as some early critics suggested, but I don't think they are completely about finding "grace" either, as she persistently insisted. Her definition of grace, however, is different than mine. O'Connor says that grace is painful, or as i
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Oct 02, 2009
Steph Su
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After reading The Complete Stories, I am now thoroughly convinced that Flannery O'Connor is indeed one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. I loved every single story I read mostly for the hypocrisy, ridiculousness, and self-delusion of the characters. It gives me a sort of guilty pleasure to hear the characters say something that we know is completely untrue.
O'Connor uses the impressive technique of what I like to call "distant narration": the narrator holds t More...
O'Connor uses the impressive technique of what I like to call "distant narration": the narrator holds t More...
May 26, 2010
Jeremy
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Spiritual intensity. That is what I appreciate most in O'Connor. Her stories have a spiritual/religious intensity to them that I find fascinating. Nearly everyone in her stories are sick and sinful. Some are simple and innocent, but that state seldom lasts long. The heart of her stories are sincere beliefs in sin and punishment. There is not much grace, though it could be buried beneath the layers of the characters legalism.
O'Connor is very good at creating these other-worldly charac More...
O'Connor is very good at creating these other-worldly charac More...
Oct 06, 2007
Kimley
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I read this while living in New Orleans and obsessing over all things Southern. This was the perfect accompaniment to sitting on the porch of my shotgun double with a cheap bottle of wine, the rain pouring down and Billie Holliday playing in the background.
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Jun 18, 2007
gaby
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I possess an almost unbounded hatred for Flannery O'Connor. Her themes are so TIRED. I get it, Flannery, you have Catholic damage. It's engulfed your life, its all you can think about. But how many people get to have careers out of it?? Super boring.
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Apr 27, 2011
Agent Zero
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Come quando l'aria è così tersa da permettere, solo che ci si sollevi un poco, uno sguardo lontano, che abbraccia tutto e con luce vivida e naturale svela i dettagli più nascosti, così è la scrittura di Flannery O'Connor.
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Oct 14, 2011
Cidney
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One of my all time favorite authors and I return to her stories now and again... fascinated not just by her odd characters and the southern setting... but also by this repeating theme she points out: "I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work. This idea, that reality is something to which we must be returned at considerable cost
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Jan 05, 2010
Larry
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Full disclosure: I had NEVER read a word of O'Connor before picking up this collection. I don't necessarily recommend the way in which I read the book -- story after story, finishing in a short month. I should say I don't recommend it, not because it is winter and the stories are dark. Dark doesn't begin to describe O'Connor's writing, which is so rich in the wisdom of the human heart -- I know, the most hackneyed of publicist copy. No, I don't recommend reading story after story, as in a novel,
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Dec 18, 2011
Taka
rated it:
Excellent--
When I read Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge" half a year ago in Burroway's Writing Fiction, I wasn't impressed. But after reading her essays, I bought this collection and was engrossed.
Her early stories are not as impressive as her later ones (thus the 4 stars the collection gets), but boy, she gets better and better. The stories from her collections were superb and blew me away.
To get into her stories, you have to get More...
When I read Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge" half a year ago in Burroway's Writing Fiction, I wasn't impressed. But after reading her essays, I bought this collection and was engrossed.
Her early stories are not as impressive as her later ones (thus the 4 stars the collection gets), but boy, she gets better and better. The stories from her collections were superb and blew me away.
To get into her stories, you have to get More...
Feb 11, 2010
Debra
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a truly amazing writer. I like a bit of the macabre. She certainly provides: dark, mysterous, well developed characters that you can empathize with. She can be funny. Very intelligent
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Jul 12, 2011
Danielle
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t - The Geranium - Old man from S. living w. daughter in NY, helped up stairs by black man
t - The Barber - S. liberal disputes politics w. barber
t - Wildcat - old man and wild cat
t - The Crop - a woman write a story about share croppers
t - The Turkey - a boy chases and catches a turkey
gm - A Stroke of Good Fortune - a woman thinks she is sick - pregnant
gm - A Good Man is Hard to Find - S. Family and serial killer
gm - A Late Encounter w. the Enemy - an old civil More...
t - The Barber - S. liberal disputes politics w. barber
t - Wildcat - old man and wild cat
t - The Crop - a woman write a story about share croppers
t - The Turkey - a boy chases and catches a turkey
gm - A Stroke of Good Fortune - a woman thinks she is sick - pregnant
gm - A Good Man is Hard to Find - S. Family and serial killer
gm - A Late Encounter w. the Enemy - an old civil More...
