(this review kind of takes in 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' as well)

...been wallowing in Flannery O'Connor's world for a few days now, and in some ways that has worked against the effectiveness of these great stories. Because it's a library book that's got to go back I was reading two or three stories a day and I think I will buy the collected stories and read them slowly, probably over a year or more and far apart again to fully savour O'Connordom. Complete mad worlds tilted with subtle heirarchies, an obsession with nearly all the characters to know where they stand, who is before whom on the road to heaven. Dominated overall by race, 'nigger' everywhere, and how to control them, get them to contribute/work for the white world, but prejudice and fear doesn't stop there, is extended to cover all foreigners, eg Polish refugees from WW2 (Europeans are 'full of crooked ways. They never have advanced or reformed. They got the same religion as a thousand years ago.' The Displaced Person).

After a while I knew in every story there'd be a woman in face cream and curlers or a seemingly well meaning patriarch who ignores his own child in favour of others, sometimes complete strangers. The Biblical themes are legion. I knew there would be some kind of physical attack, some - bull, gun, tractor - fatal, others life changing in other ways. The landscape would be the same - woods and water, a barn and a dusty road. All the characters would be deluded to some extent, nasty often, harshly listing the faults and flaws of the world and the people in it, or finding perfection where it doesn't exist. They're ratty, contradictory, crawling with desires or resentments, often in search of tenderness and connection (though they would deny it) but not getting it. A fine cruelty throughout.

But, no matter, truly rich stories, packed with memorable images that jump out - the eyes on Parker's back, the spectacles whittled in wood (brought to mind the billboard in Great Gatsby). A lot on eyes reflecting, or showing soemthing deeper. The other big motif throughout both books is the sun - always the stand in for God in the stories, relentless and powerful, making us see, or blinding us, adding beauty and mystery as it sets or rises. I'll never forget the glorious path to heaven that is shown in 'Revelation' She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. Or just before that when she shakes her fist with the hose in it and a watery snake appeared momentarily in the air. I'll never forget the horn garlanded bull in the moonlight, the tractor going into the tree, the shots in the woods.

None though seem as strong and cruel and shocking as A Good Man is Hard to Find, the first and still the best story of her's I've read. But I'm looking forward to the re-reading, the finding out if that will still be true when I can see them from more of a distance.