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388 ratings, 4.27 average rating, 45 reviews
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published
January 1st 1969
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
binding
Paperback, 256 pages
isbn
0374508046
(isbn13: 9780374508043)
description
At her death in 1964, O'Connor left behind a body of unpublished essays and lectures as well as a number of critical articles that had appeared in sca...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 542)
O'Connor breaks down the art of fiction writing. Lots of wit and insight, but for me, the religious stuff drags a bit.
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Who knew an isolated lupus-suffering hyper-religious Catholic in the smack middle of Georgia could be so hot damn funny!
Seriously, a victory.
I think what makes Flannery O'Connor's aesthetic so brilliant is its combination of two themes: what she calls the "violent" and the "comic." Her literature, like her essays, is both funny and deeply, unabashedly brutal. For O'Connor writing, like reading, isn't a science or an exercise in sentimentality. We don't -and shouldn...more
Seriously, a victory.
I think what makes Flannery O'Connor's aesthetic so brilliant is its combination of two themes: what she calls the "violent" and the "comic." Her literature, like her essays, is both funny and deeply, unabashedly brutal. For O'Connor writing, like reading, isn't a science or an exercise in sentimentality. We don't -and shouldn...more
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Read in July, 2008
In this collection of essays and lectures O'Connor produced, one can learn a lot about the part of writing that's in your head--the part most writers and wanna-bes have the most trouble with--and not much about the mechanics of it, the part everyone seems mostly to want to learn. She's actually disparaging here to people who, she writer, keep asking her about technique, ignoring what it really means to write, at their peril.
The editors have tried to group them according to purpose--for examp...more
The editors have tried to group them according to purpose--for examp...more
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So much great advice in these essays, and O'Connor is so quotable. Much easier to quote than to emulate. On this reading I took the time to read the four essays—which I'd previously skipped—relating to the writer and religion and was surprised to find embedded in there some otherwise sound advice that even a non-catholic writer could put to use. For the most part, though, those four essays seemed to be aimed at critics of her religious bent, or at writers such as Sartre and Camus, as in this...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
fiction writers
This is an excellent book about fiction, why (in one practitioner's opinion) to write it, read it, and value it. Flannery O'Connor has a matter-of-fact approach to big topics like the philosophy of art, and suffers neither fools nor mediocrity. This collection of her lectures and essays is so pithy that I was often moved to jot down quotes for later use. Some of these follow my review.
The last part of the volume, which concerns being a Catholic writer, writing the Catholic novel, et cetera,...more
The last part of the volume, which concerns being a Catholic writer, writing the Catholic novel, et cetera,...more
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Read in August, 2008
recommended to Mary by:
no onerecommends it for: writers
I have long been a fan of Flannery O'Connor's fiction but I had not read her non-fiction or essays until two months ago. She may have died over 40 years ago, but her take on the writing scene and the nature of writing is accurate--it as though she wrote it recently. As a former Catholic, I do understand her religious and spiritual references. If those give pause to some readers, I would still recommend the book for its clear-eyed, non-sentimental look at the education in America and why the w...more
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Read in October, 2008
This book, about writing, was published after O'Connor's death. It is compiled from unpublished essays, lectures, and letters and carefully edited by several close friends. In it, O'Connor addresses her Catholicism (not the average run-of-the mill type) and her location as a southern writer. She must have been a terrifying teacher since she doesn't pull her punches about what she considers good and bad writing (most of it is bad as far as she's concerned). Nor does she believe in pandering t...more
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Re-read old girl cuz I'm (oddly enough) teaching fiction this semester (including her story, "Parker's Back"). Recalled that she's a badass.
“It is the business of fiction to embody mystery through manners, and mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind. About the turn of the century, Henry James wrote that the young woman of the future, though she would be taken out for airings in a flying-machine, would know nothing of mystery or manners. James had no business to limi...more
“It is the business of fiction to embody mystery through manners, and mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind. About the turn of the century, Henry James wrote that the young woman of the future, though she would be taken out for airings in a flying-machine, would know nothing of mystery or manners. James had no business to limi...more
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Read in July, 2008
This is the book that has made me stop fighting Flannery. I think all too often writers from the South are told to look to Flannery O'Connor with no real guidance on how to approach her--their writing, it would seem, must necessarily be dark and grotesque, which shouldn't be the case. Her essays on writing at the beginning of the book, and especially on writing along with the identity that comes from the South (or really, I think, any writing that has a distinct sense of place), were not only co...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
my Stepmother.
Her commitment to the Christian point of view is a little overwhelming, but I think her criticisms of Northern vs. Southern writers is spot on--she says something to the effect of 'people are always going to call Southern writing grotesque, however if it's Northern writing, it's called 'realistic.'' She is also very willing to take ownership of the American canon, that it was created by Southerners, which is certainly A way of looking at things.
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Read in November, 2008
"I don't know if I am setting the aims of the teacher of English too high or too low when I suggest that it is, partly at least, his business to change the face of the best-seller list... Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning . . . in other ages the attention of children was held by Homer and Virgil . . ."
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Flannery O'Connor speaks across the kitchen table. Her short stories are masterpieces but this book, a short primer really, helps her reader see much more about theme and character. To paraphrase: Stop making it more than what it is. A character is a person. He has a personality and he does things according to that personality.
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i had to flog myself a bit to get done with the end of the series of essays on catholocism, but this book actually went fairly speedily for me. naturally, i preferred the bits about peacocks the best. made me want to kidnap a peacock and raise it in the middle of DC. oh, and she has some quality things to say about writing, too...
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Read in September, 2008
This gets kind of redundant. I find her commentary to be intriguing but at the same time there's only so much I can hear about writing from a Catholic's point of view, especially because I'd rather not think about how she was Catholic. These essays are worth reading for any O'Connor fan, but maybe only a select bunch of them.
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Read in August, 2008
This is my first time through this book from beginning to end, though I've read parts of it many times. O'Connor's conviction that non-Catholics have no moral compass gets awfully tiresome, but the pieces on teaching and, especially, the art of fiction are flat-out essential.
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Read in March, 2008
A quote I liked from the book (on representing poverty in fiction): "I believe that the basic experience of everyone is the experience of human limitation....in the sight of the novelist we are all poor, and the actual poor only symbolize for him the state of all men."
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3 comments
Read in October, 2008
recommended to Sarah by:
Kellyrecommends it for: writers
These essays are great: sharp, wry, and witty. My favorites by far were "The King of the Birds," "The Nature and Aim of Fiction," and "Writing Short Stories." The essays on religion's role in writing dragged for me--I found myself skimming them at points.
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Read in March, 2006
I've read this book several times. O'Connor was a seriously spiritual woman with an uncommonly devilish wit. If you write and you don't read this collection of talks, you run the risk of continuing to write the crap you've probably been writing.
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Read in August, 2008
O'Connor, one of my favorite authors, is necessary reading for any aspiring writer. Some of the articles are a little out of date because they were written more than half a century ago, but the principles are still clear and useful.
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Read in September, 2008
Thought provoking essays/speaches that could only come from someone with Flannery O'Connor's experience. The conversations about Christianity in fiction made me a little weary after awhile.
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quotes from this book
"Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it."
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