The Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor

by Flannery O'Connor, Marie-Claude Perrin-Chenour

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2450 ratings, 4.58 average rating, 263 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		67%
4		25%
3		5%
2		1%
1		0%

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published

December 21st 2004 (first published 1971) by Armand Colin

binding

Broché

isbn

2200268025 (isbn13: 9782200268022)

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Allen rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

06/01/08

Read in May, 2008

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 enjoyable. I l...more

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Baiocco rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

09/29/07

bookshelves: shortstorycollection

recommends it for: People Who Like The Ideas of Faulkner Books, But Not The Labor Of Actually Reading Them

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 ...more

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Alexa rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

01/28/08

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...more

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Tyler rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

05/08/08

Read in January, 2004

recommended to Tyler by: Southern Lit Fans
recommends it for: Southern Lit Fans

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 thougho...more

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Ron rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

02/05/08

bookshelves: short-stories

Read in February, 2008

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 women w...more 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 women were on a bus, and during that particular segment of the ride there was no other racial representation on board, Ms. O'Connor presents her busriders openly discussing the rights "of the niggers" and what one might expect of them, etc. In other words, what many decades of upbringing inculcated in someone just doesn't fly away with new legislation, with turning points in history.

And one wonders, with the Confederate flag still proudly flying down in parts of the south, with a lot of people either themselves or with their parents having lived during years of decided segregation, how removed are those gut preferences, those conditioned thoughts, from one's consciousness as one lives one's daily life?

And I must say the portrayal of "colored" farm workers or hired hands--not the middle class or up and coming business entrepreneur in the Black community--is utterly fascinating. Her portrayal has such workers remarkably obsequious, overly flattering and complementary, not uppity or filled with rage. One wonders--one suspects--there's a bit of acting going on here, that they as habit ingratiate themselves with such bromides--but it all stands in such contrast to the "angry Black man" and the "draw your line in the sand" civil rights protester many of us came to be introduced to as seemingly representative of the new and liberated Black community.

This aspect is only one dimension of Flannery's writings. She creates it all, tells beautiful stories, has a lot of odd characters, charlatans, scam artists, soul-less opportunists, innocents, all of them somehow victims, yet also people who could well alter their own fate if they would only be nudged--or nudge themselves--in that direction.

Her body of work is relatively small--but golden....less

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Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0374127522)

10/04/07

Read in August, 2005

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; lan...more

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Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

05/29/07

Read in December, 2006

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 up most o...more

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Kristin rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

06/12/07

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: anyone who is not easily offended

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...more

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Josh rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

08/29/07

bookshelves: a-good-man-is-hard-to-find

Read in January, 2005

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 That Rises Must...more

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Lance added it (review of isbn 0374515360)

11/04/08

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 ...more

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Kimley rated it:

(review of isbn 0374127522)

10/06/07

bookshelves: 20th-century, american-lit

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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14 comments

gaby rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

06/18/07

Read in January, 1997

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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Debra added it (review of isbn 0374515360)

07/15/08

Read in July, 2008

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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Valerie rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

06/30/08

Read in June, 2008

Been working through this over the last nine months; savoring. Genius.

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q rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

03/21/08

bookshelves: partially-read

Read in June, 2007

I'd been reading these over off and on since summer 2007. I've misplaced the book and I'm in no hurry to find it.
I guess I was about halfway through them.

If I were grading this objectively, it would get more stars, but my ratings are as subjective as I can manage. The stories are mostly well-crafted, but I only enjoyed a few of them. A few of them I found trite.

She's at her best when examining the complexities of pervasive racism. Her dead-on realism about it often gave me a dull s...more

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Dave rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

08/31/07

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: those who like a little sugar in their water

My, my, my, what Flannery weaves with her yarn. Social misfits and old fashion pecking hens never got a tribute like the wide range of stories to be found in this collection. Those familiar with her longer works, WISE BLOOD and THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY, should love these snapshots of southern life that O'Connor is a genius at painting with her words (though not all the stories in the collection are set in the south, the characters themselves are almost always rooted there). And how they can talk...more

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John rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

08/11/07

Read in November, 2004

recommends it for: Literary readers, all fans of short fiction

Flannery O'Connor's works reflect a hard life and a harsh world. She is most interested in family troubles, racism and everything else that makes a person feel lost. In "Greenleaf" we meet a mother who can't rely on anyone, even her own sons, and winds up rangling a rogue bull. In "All That Rises Must Converge," a son struggles to tolerate his mother's woefully antiquated sensibilities and bigotry. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," a family on a roadtrip are waylaid ...more

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Saide rated it:

(review of isbn 0374626235)

12/20/07

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: hassan

Miss O'Conner determination to incorporate her uncanny beliefs of Christian orthodoxy, resourcefully shaped her artistic approaches in the literary scene of English writing. I found it personally engaging because I had the experience of living in religiously run society, first half of my life.

Miss O'Conner's religious assumption of the world has only one goal and that is the quest to cleanse the Earth from the hands of the devil that has already contaminated the entire
modern way of livin...more

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furies rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

07/13/07

bookshelves: classics, high-school-reading, philosophy-religion-etc

Read in October, 1997

another wonderful book in my religious anthropology class, this is maybe one of the small handful of short-story collections i actually enjoyed. (i am not a short story reader.)

o'conner is delightfully dark and twisted - her stories seem to explore the depths of human sin and desparity. set in the south, it's a nice companion piece to faulkner - once i read some of his short stories, and then read a couple of hers, and boy, if that doesn't convince you that living in the south in the early 2...more

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Kristi rated it:

(review of isbn 0374515360)

11/26/08

Read in November, 2008

recommended to Kristi by: a professor
recommends it for: southern fiction lovers

Although I really liked this collection of short stories, I have to admit that after awhile it became like watching a Twilight Zone marathon. Every show is basically the same bizarre premise, but they each have their own specific characters and situations. The stories did become a bit predictable, but I enjoyed the book as a whole. My favorite story is by far "Good Country People." Again, it is not too much different from the other stories, but at least the ending was a bit more surpri...more

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