The Complete Stories
by Flannery O'Connor
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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
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
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Read in January, 2004
recommended to relyt by:
Southern Lit Fansrecommends 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
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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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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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
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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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; landowner...more
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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
That is not to say they aren't enjoyable. I l...more
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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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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
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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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
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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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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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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The 31 stories found in A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge. O'Connor is my American literary hero (OK, my female literary hero...there's still Steinbeck and Vonnegut). Anyone who hasn't read her is just flat out missing out on some amazing writing. O'connor approaches spirituality via the dark side of human nature, causing the reader at the end of each story to fell like they've come into the presence of the divine by taking the darkest path through Hell. This...more
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Read in January, 2001
recommends it for:
anyone with a dark sense of humor, anyone who's ever questioned religion
Okay, so, technically I didn't get through this entire book, but we read about 3/4 of the stories for my IB english class. Her style and subject matter isn't for everyone, and can take a bit of getting used to. After reading a handful of stories, though, I was bewitched by her darkness and imagery. The last scene in "Revelations," the longest but one of the best stories in this collection, is forever burned upon my brain.
One of the things I like most about her is the way she finish...more
One of the things I like most about her is the way she finish...more
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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
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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Reading Flannery O'Connor is like like how Laura Ingalls describes taking castor oil. It kind of sucks, but you know its good for you.
Again assigned for my southern lit class-- the prof talked about O'Connor's awareness and affirmation of the forces of good and evil in the world, and how they manifested themselves in the South. F O'C. apparently loved those roadside series of signs-- you know, spaced like 20 ft. apart on some state highway-- that said "REPENT." "FOR." "...more
Again assigned for my southern lit class-- the prof talked about O'Connor's awareness and affirmation of the forces of good and evil in the world, and how they manifested themselves in the South. F O'C. apparently loved those roadside series of signs-- you know, spaced like 20 ft. apart on some state highway-- that said "REPENT." "FOR." "...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in January, 2006
Of all the books listed here, this collection is my favorite. It is quite possibly the finest collection of American short stories.
Here is an excerpt of my mini-review featured in the Reader's Pick section of the Christain Science Monitor in 2006:
While these are old stories, they are as interesting and fresh today as they were nearly 50 years ago. She is an amazing writer, among our best - her precision with words and her ability to craft story and character in startling and original i...more
Here is an excerpt of my mini-review featured in the Reader's Pick section of the Christain Science Monitor in 2006:
While these are old stories, they are as interesting and fresh today as they were nearly 50 years ago. She is an amazing writer, among our best - her precision with words and her ability to craft story and character in startling and original i...more
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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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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in October, 1997
recommends it for:
Everyone
O'Connor single-handedly forged my love for the short story. Her mastery of obliquely portraying a theme is the perfect balance of detail and coyness.
Even without having been there, I feel safe in saying that her depiction of the South in the early twentieth century rings true. When I passed this book on to my grandparents four years ago, their reactions were the same, having lived through the times being described. There is something so intimate in these stories that they pass themselves...more
Even without having been there, I feel safe in saying that her depiction of the South in the early twentieth century rings true. When I passed this book on to my grandparents four years ago, their reactions were the same, having lived through the times being described. There is something so intimate in these stories that they pass themselves...more
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Read in February, 2008
I had a certain idea in my head of what reading all of O'Connor at once would be like, based on some preconceived notions from the few stories of her I'd read in anthologies and things. I'm happy to say I was completely wrong. Still uncanny and unsettling after all these years, nearly every story at least pushes into a sort of dream-like fugue where all of the protagonist's pride and preconceptions are dynamited away. If there's a formula at all, it's one of stripping haughty people to absolute ...more
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Read in January, 1996
recommends it for:
everyone on the planet
whenever i re-read flannery o'connor's stories my hair stands on end and i hit stages of ecstasy. this is how the world and how writing are supposed to appear-- so simple and hilarious and scorching and true and unexpected, all of them. this is something i idolize most in the world. one aspect that really touches me and that i aspire to is the way in which she renders, so tenderly and yet so unflinchingly and full of humor, the worst vanities and resentments and delusions of the human soul-- yet...more
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