A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories

by Flannery O'Connor, Marguerite Gavin (Narrator)

Read by Marguerite Gavin.
Length: 7 hr., 30 min.

This book of short stories revealed O'Connor as one of the most original and provocative writers to emerge from the South. Her apocalyptic vision of life is expressed through grotesque, often comic situations in which the principal character faces a problem of salvation.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Southern Gothic, Literature, Gothic, Southern

8 pages, Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Critics note novels Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960) and short stories, collected in such works as A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955), of American writer Mary Flannery O'Connor for their explorations of religious faith and a spare literary style.

The Georgia state college for women educated O’Connor, who then studied writing at the Iowa writers' workshop and wrote much of Wise Blood at the colony of artists at Yaddo in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on Andalusia, ancestral farm of her family outside Milledgeville, Georgia.

O’Connor wrote Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). When she died at the age of 39 years, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.

Survivors published her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the national book award for that year. Survivors published her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988, the Library of America published Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor, the first so honored postwar writer.

People in an online poll in 2009 voted her Complete Stories as the best book to win the national book award in the six-decade history of the contest.

Reviews

[Federico DN · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Good Short Story Is Hard To Find.

A collection of ten short stories by Flannery O'Connor, Queen of Southern Gothic and Christian low-jabs.

I have this feeling reading Flannery O'Connor is like reading a Christian version of Shirley Jackson, which isn’t bad really, just not my jam, sadly. One can only endure so many slaps to the face! This was my first encounter with the “Southern Gothic” genre, which can’t say I’m a fan of, and never knew before it existed. Of course, even if I didn’t found it so enjoyable that doesn’t mean it can’t be for others. I’m positive any Shirley Jackson fan would love these stories, since dear Flannery O'Connor seems to irk her readers the same way, sort of. Like Shirley, truly excels at the deeply, unsettling thing, honestly.

All in all, I’m just glad I got to read ”The Displaced Person” and ”A Good Man Is Hard to Find", which are the two stories I hold most dear from this collection, and the only ones that I think will truly remain in my memory; the rest, although good, or ok, I could’ve lived without. Flannery O'Connor is just too damn religious sometimes, for my taste.

Can’t say I look forward to reading more by this author, but chances are high that I will anyway, because of randomness, and stuff. Yet, hopefully, it’ll be someday far away.

Go for the Best, consider the Good, whatever the Meh.

The Best :
★★★★☆ "The Displaced Person." [4.5]
★★★★☆ "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." [3.5]

The Good :
★★★☆☆ "The River."
★★★☆☆ "A Stroke of Good Fortune." [2.5]

The Meh :
★★☆☆☆ "Good Country People." [2.5]
★★☆☆☆ "A Circle in the Fire."
★★☆☆☆ "A Late Encounter with the Enemy."
★★☆☆☆ "A Temple of the Holy Ghost." [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ "The Artificial Nigger." [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." [0.5]

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PERSONAL NOTE :
[1955] [252p] [Collection] [2.5] [Partly Recommendable]
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Una Buena Historia Corta Es Difícil De Encontrar.

Una colección de diez cuentos cortos por Flannery O'Connor, Reina del Gótico sureño y golpes bajos cristianos.

Tengo la sensación de que leer a Flannery O'Connor es como leer una versión cristiana de Shirley Jackson, lo cual no está mal en verdad, pero no mi vibra, lamentablemente. ¡Uno sólo puede soportar tantas bofetadas en la cara! Este fue mi primer encuentro con el género “Gótico sureño”, del que no puedo decir que sea fan, y que ni siquiera sabía que existía hasta ahora. Por supuesto, incluso si no lo disfruté tanto, eso no significa que no pueda serlo para otros. Creo con cierta seguridad que a cualquier fan de Shirley Jackson le encantarían estas historias, ya que la querida Flannery O'Connor parece irritar a sus lectores de la misma manera, más o menos. Como Shirley, realmente sobresale en esa cosa profundamente inquietante, honestamente.

Considerando todo, me alegra haber podido leer ”La Persona Desplazada” y ”Un Buen Hombre es Difícil de Encontrar", que son las dos historias que más aprecio de esta colección, y las únicas que creo que realmente permanecerán en mi memoria; el resto, aunque buenas o aceptables, podría haber vivido sin ellas. Flannery O'Connor es a veces simplemente demasiado religiosa, para mi gusto.

No puedo decir que tenga ganas de leer más de esta autora, pero hay altas posibilidades de que lo haga de igual forma, por mi aleatoriedad, y esas cosas. Sin embargo, con suerte, será algún día lejano.

Ir por lo Mejor, considerar lo Bueno, loquesea lo Meh.

Lo Mejor :
★★★★☆ "La Persona Desplazada." [4.5]
★★★★☆ "Un Buen Hombre es Difícil de Encontrar." [3.5]

Lo Bueno :
★★★☆☆ "El Rio."
★★★☆☆ "Un Golpe de Buena Fortuna." [2.5]

Lo Meh :
★★☆☆☆ "Buena Gente del Campo." [2.5]
★★☆☆☆ "Un Círculo en el Fuego."
★★☆☆☆ "Un Encuentro Tardío con el Enemigo."
★★☆☆☆ "Un Templo del Espíritu Santo." [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ "El Negro Artificial." [1.5]
★☆☆☆☆ "La Vida que Salves puede ser la Tuya." [0.5]

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NOTA PERSONAL :
[1955] [252p] [Colección] [2.5] [Parcialmente Recomendable]
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[Fabian · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exemplary short story collection & very likely at the zenith in most "all-time" lists. All 10 vignettes are blissfully cinematographic, spewing out image after retched image, illuminating lives filled with woe, woe, & more woe. In a place of stasis & violence.

The setting is that of the inglorious Southern U.S.--minus its usual sheen of glittery magnificence.

It is without a doubt one very strong dose of American Gothic. The elements of which practically overflow in each short story: the immortal clashes between races, between sexes, between ages... reluctance to the advances of technology, the always impressionable war between rural & urban spaces.... plus the fabulous and macabre for which we've come to know and love the artist, such as: bizarrely wise children and inane adults; monkeys (of course!); trains, cars, transportation; self-fulfilling prophecy (the titular story is the main example of this); death, missteps, punishment exchanged for ingrained ignorance; as one character boldly puts it, an infatuation with "secret infections, hidden deformities, assaults upon children" (173). Sentences are overstuffed with a hidden meaning, & there is absolutely no real key to unlock each mysterious element or eerie undertone.

After the first story, the stories linger on insignificance much to long, but this is quickly forgiven as the last four stories (A Circle of Fire, A Late Encounter with the Enemy, Good Country People [my personal winner], and The Displaced Person) in the book match, if not surpass, the first one, the very very good "A Good Man...". & the immigrant polemic of this country in the modern day is a prophetic way to end her collection, in tale #10.

With these horrific and morbid morsels, it begins to dawn on us that no one else but the devil is in the details. It is no wonder that O'Connor is conversing with Faulkner in the Afterlife at this very moment... (Imagine, for a second, a fantasy collaboration between the two. A screenplay? WOW.)

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This stuff is twisted, sparse, clipped, dark, doomy, funny, dramatic, Southern, angry, super Catholic, death-haunted, maniacal, bizarre, possibly racist, apparently desperate, fatalistic, existential, dreary, ugly, fetid, frenzied, morbid, lax, stern, prepossessing, unforgiving, unrelenting, anti-everything, aged, "retro", haunting, parabolic, anecdotal, moral, redemptive, sublime, reasoned, feverish, dreamlike, unsparing, sparse, I said that one already, seductive, craftsman like, worried, taut, brooding, polarizing, scary, and powerful.

I literally didn't know one could write like this until I heard her do it.

I didn't know that the human mind would conceive of this until she did. Not that it's simply freaky- o no, that would be too easy- it's just so carefully done and well-proportioned in its flatness and its odd grace.

Masterpieces, pretty much to a story.

!

?

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exiled From Eden

I don’t always have the aptitude and the patience (paradoxically) for short fiction, but O’Connor has a way of connecting all her stories by setting them in a landscape that refuses to leave you. The stories and the unease stay with you as you finish each grotesque piece, building up layer upon layer of despair until you thirst for an almost religious release from it all.

Peopled with the religious, the good and the moral -- trying to come to terms with a god-less world, grappling with a cruel word and crueler selves -- the continuous tensions between religiousness, morality and reality is played out in small, inconsequential dramas that affect nobody and nothing, but continues to fray the fabric of the world.

And in the end, each mini-drama also raises many mega-questions — Was it the loneliness of spirit that caused this particular drama to play out as it did? Can religion be blamed for the mistakes of humanity? Was God only ever invented so that humanity could bask in a continuous god-less loneliness, blaming abandonment over depravity for their ills? Are we self-exiled?

These are essentially comic tales — mixing violence, religion and morality without any restraints — where her characters face the ultimate questions of life and make the best choices they can, which are almost always tragically absurd in the eyes of the observer. With the best intentions, they are allowed to knock at and break open the gates to Hell.

My favorite is ‘The River’ — of ‘a neglected four-year-old boy looking for the Kingdom of Christ in the fast-flowing waters of the river.’ This story is characteristic of O’Connor’s fiction — it is simple and straight forward at first glance, though strangely, unaccountably powerful. But this apparent simplicity is misleading, for it operates on many levels — showcasing the power, absurdity, and danger of religion; and also its hypnotic beauty and irresistible splendor.

While the stories are deeply religious and derive their grotesqueness and tension from religion, a religious sensibility is in no way required for the reader to stand in awe of and grapple with the cold, godless and essentially lonely reality as presented to the protagonists. The readers will instantly find themselves at home in this cruel, fantastically real world of O’Connor. It is only the world outside your window, and inside yourself.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece collection of short stories published in 1953.

Flannery O’Connor must have been a bizarre phenomenon at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where I imagine mostly atheist urbane sophisticates shaped their literary fictions. O’Connor was not an atheist; quite the contrary--she was a devout and passionate Roman Catholic. As she once said, “If the Eucharist is just a symbol, then I say the Hell with it.” Regarding the question of whether people are Innately good, I think she would say there is a Heaven and a Hell, and Evil is real. Maybe she would say they have the capacity for good but almost never come through. As she says about most of her characters, many of them are offered the opportunity of grace, of better options, and they don’t usually choose these options.

Flannery O’Connor is known for comically depicting physical and mental and decidedly Southern “grotesques” as part of her literary landscape. Southern gothic. I won’t review every story, though I love them all, having read them many times over the years. I think she basically points out hypocrisy and prideful ignorance, with sardonic humor. And that includes hypocritical religious people who get skewered by her razor tongue, those who are shown routes to redemption, those roads untaken. Hilarious characters and amazing writing.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find,” is a story--and a(n brutal) American classic--about a “Misfit” wandering the country, robbing and killing. Grandma, Bailey, his wife and two kids get lost on a trip, roll their car, and sure enough, the Misfit and some of his “companions” find them. The Misfit has a kind of theological discussion with Grandma, a self-absorbed ludicrous character who begins to argue passionately for the Misfit to do the right thing. In the end the Misfit says this iconic line: “She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." This is one of her stories that makes me think she is kind of Catholic Jim Thompson (a brutal noir writer).

Here’s some of the crazy good writing from the story:

“Lady," he said, and turned and gave her his full attention, "lemme tell you something. There's one of these doctors in Atlanta that's taken a knife and cut the human heart-the human heart," he repeated, leaning forward, "out of a man's chest and held it in his hand," and he held his hand out, palm up, as if it were slightly weighted with the human heart, "and studied it like it was a day-old chicken, and lady," he said, allowing a long significant pause in which his head slid forward and his clay-colored eyes brightened, "he don't know no more about it than you or me."
"That's right," the old woman said.”

“The Life You Save May Be Your Own” is about a woman raising her disabled daughter on a small farm when a traveling handyman comes in and offers to help do stuff around the place. The woman wants her daughter married, and sort of offers the man an opportunity to have a wife, a broken-down car, and eventual ownership of the place if he stays and helps them. Right, she sort of barters her daughter for a car. Depressing, okay, but the story has a kind of manic hilarity to it as we see the self-interests of the man and woman vie for ascendence. Here’s a chunk:

“A fat yellow moon appeared in the branches of the fig tree as if it were going to roost there with the chickens. He said that a man had to escape to the country to see the world whole and that he wished he lived in a desolate place like this where he could see the sun go down every evening like God made it to do.”

“The Artificial N--ger” is amazing, too, about Mr. Head and his grandson Nelson who visit Atlanta and get lost. Head is racist and in these stories, one generally has to pay for treating people badly (and one of those people he mistreats is Nelson):

“A cloud, the exact color of the boy's hat and shaped like a turnip, had descended over the sun, and another, worse looking, crouched behind the car. Mr. Shiftlet felt that the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him.”

The last one I’ll mention is another personal favorite relevant to today’s refugee crisis,”The Displaced Person” about a woman on a farm who takes in a “displaced” Polish family, the father having survived a concentration camp. He’s an amazing worker and so disrupts the largely dysfunctional indolence of the farm, but when he states his intention to bring others from Poland to join them, this crosses a line for her:

"It is not my responsibility that Mr. Guizac has nowhere to go," she said. "I don't find myself responsible for all the extra people in the world."

In the process, O’Connor shows us how the woman and others on the farm who resent the “displaced person” themselves become "displaced" from their own self-satisfied ways of living. The story becomes ultimately tragic, but is very powerful, and moving, and as I said, relevant to today's immigration politics.

"The Displaced Person" is actually novella-length. It was also developed into a one-hour film I actually saw (and taught, as a high school teacher!) first when it came out in 1976. Here's a trailer for it, but you can see the whole thing on YouTube for free:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2qhP...

[Orsodimondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

IL DIAVOLO PROBABILMENTE


Uno dei due romanzi di Flannery O’Connor, “Wise Blood – La saggezza nel sangue” è stato portato sullo schermo dal grande John Huston nel 1979. Qui Brad Dourif.

Padre, madre, figlio bambino e nonna partono in auto per andare a trovare lontani parenti. Il viaggio avviene per le insistenze della vecchia, piuttosto bisbetica, e ben poco simpatica.
Alla radio della macchina ascoltano la notizia della fuga di tre evasi comandati dal Balordo, spietato criminale.
I nostri hanno un incidente, l’auto si capotta, ma sono tutti illesi. Vengono soccorsi da un auto in arrivo, che guarda caso, contiene proprio i tre galeotti in fuga.
Il bambino capisce e riconosce il Balordo: bocca della verità (?), fonte d’innocenza (!?), in questo modo condanna tutti perché è chiaro che una volta riconosciuti, gli evasi non possono lasciare testimoni.
Ma il Balordo non è solo Male, conosce anche il Bene, almeno un po’, forse solo in chiave macabra: li fa ammazzare, ma uno lontano dagli altri, di modo che non debbano assistere alla morte del proprio caro.
Solo che, chiaramente, i colpi si sentono, e quello che sta succedendo è palese.
Il capo, il Balordo, tiene per sé il bocconcino più prelibato: la vecchia nonna.


Stesso film: qui Brad Dourif è insieme al compianto Harry Dean Stanton.

Fin qui mi pare evidente che emergano un paio degli elementi che contraddistinguono la prosa di Flannery O’Connor: la cura della trama, ben costruita, facendo ricorso a strumenti del migliore artigianato narrativo, come l’aspettativa, l’attesa, la suspense. Tutto pur di tenere incollato il lettore.
L’altro aspetto è l’ironia nera e macabra con la quale affronta tutto, inclusi gli aspetti tragici.

L’incallito assassino e l’anziana, che ha fede in dio (fede cattolica, trattandosi della O’Connor), ingaggiano un duello verbale che si protrae durante il quale la donna cerca di convincere l’uomo che in fondo c’è del buono anche nella sua anima. Se ci riesce, probabilmente avrà salva la vita.
Quando capisce che non riuscirà nel suo intento, ha un momento di tipo mistico, accarezza l’assassino sulla spalla, pronuncia Tu sei uno dei miei bambini. Sei una delle mie creature! e, pum pum, viene uccisa.
Solo che a questo punto i due che si accompagnano al Balordo scoppiano a ridere e il capo li zittisce. Zitto Bobby Lee. Non c’è vero piacere nella vita. Quasi in qualche modo contorto fosse stato infine redento, avesse compreso, avesse ricevuto illuminazione divina.



Il terzo aspetto che si palesa, costante della narrativa di Flannery O’Connor, è che la guerra tra Bene e Male, vuol dire dio e diavolo, vuol dire fede religione e chiesa cattolica.
E quindi, per quanto ottima scrittrice, scrittrice di razza, io l’ho apprezzata meno di quanto meriti, e di quanto la storia della letteratura le riconosca: la sua fede religiosa è per me ostacolo insormontabile.
Qualsiasi fede religiosa lo sarebbe per me: ma quella cattolica in particolare visto che vivo in un paese dove i cattolici hanno fatto danni incalcolabili, dove il Vaticano regna.
E a me che vivo a poche centinaia di metri da quello stato nello stato, e ahimé città nella città, impedisce pure di sentire la radio perché disturba qualsiasi frequenza con le sue frequenze. Il che non fa che rafforzare il mio rifiuto.



All'ombra dell'ultimo sole s'era assopito un pescatore, e aveva un solco lungo il viso come una specie di sorriso.
Venne alla spiaggia un assassino, due occhi grandi da bambino, due occhi enormi di paura, eran gli specchi di un'avventura.
E chiese al vecchio "Dammi il pane. Ho poco tempo e troppa fame". E chiese al vecchio "Dammi il vino. Ho sete e sono un assassino".
Gli occhi dischiuse il vecchio al giorno, non si guardò neppure intorno, ma versò il vino e spezzò il pane per chi diceva "Ho sete. Ho fame".
E fu il calore d'un momento, poi via di nuovo verso il vento: davanti agli occhi ancora il sole, dietro alle spalle un pescatore.
Vennero in sella due gendarmi. Vennero in sella con le armi. Chiesero al vecchio se lì vicino fosse passato un assassino.
Ma all'ombra dell'ultimo sole s'era assopito il pescatore, e aveva un solco lungo il viso come una specie di sorriso.

Faber, amico fragile.


Altra presenza folgorante è Ned Beatty.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

First things first, O’Connor did exactly what she intended to do here. It’s not a failure by any stretch (if, at times, close-cropped and uneven). Whatever she’s doing, cruel and unusual, she’s good at it. But ugh, it just happens to be the exact kind of thing that revolts something deep down in my gut. I’m usually all on board with the creepy, crazy, what-have-you, but the difference here is that nobody is even alive before they’re dead.

There was this other review that said O’Connor believes in God but not so much in people, and all things considered that’s exactly it. The thing is, I need the opposite. I need it the other way around.

[Zoeytron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flannery O'Connor taps into a different type of dark with this collection of ten short stories.  This is not horror, but it is disturbing.  Nothing uplifting in here, no sirree-bob.  

Hidden deformities, unwelcome visitors who refuse to leave, a woman's aversion to doctors, and a door-to-door Bible salesman who is a collector of some very odd things.  Many of the characters are slightly "off", just as many have a mean streak.  Eyes play a prominent role, a cast in the eye, a cracked eye, the eyes in the tail of a peacock, the look of the eyes behind spectacles. 

A Good Man Is Hard To Find title story is just as striking as I've always heard.  It may stick with me longer than I want.

[Dan Schwent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Good Man is Hard to Find: A family strikes out on a road trip to Florida, knowing that an escaped convict is on the loose...

What a kick ass tale to open the collection. Flannery O'Connor had to be an influence of sorts on Jim Thompson, as this reads a lot like a condensed version of one of his stories. "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

The River: An odd little boy is taken to a river to be Baptised by a fire and brimstone preacher. Bleakness ensues.

"He could hear broken piece of the sun knocking on the water."

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: A one armed drifter takes up with an old woman and her deaf maiden daughter. Flannery O'Connor sure writes some grim tales.

A Stroke of Good Fortune: Ruby has some difficulty climbing the stairs to the apartment she shares with her husband, Bill Hill, and her brother Rufus, all the while thinking about what the fortune teller said.

"Bill Hill takes care of that!"

A Temple of the Holy Ghost: A child's annoying second cousins come from the convent to attend the fair.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I missed the point of this one. It was a little different from the previous ones since no one died.

The Artificial Nigger: Mr. Heard takes his grandson Nelson to the big city and they encounter African Americans.

I glossed over a lot of this. It's a tale of some country folk coming to the big city and it nicely illustrates why we rural Americans get a bad name. It also uses the N-word more times per page than anything I've read before, a product of the time.

A Circle in the Fire: Three troublesome boys show up at an old woman's farm. What will happen when they refuse to leave?

This one had some religious overtones and was fairly creepy.

A Late Encounter with the Enemy : Will Sally Poker's 104 year old grandfather, General Sash, die before her graduation?

I loved this one.

Good Country People: A young man shows up at Mrs. Hopewell's house selling bibles and takes a shine to her daughter, Joy.

This was another great story that reminded me of a Jim Thompson, Savage Night.

The Displaced Person: A priest hires a displaced person to work on Mrs. McIntyre's farm. How will her existing hands take it when he's more capable than them?

The ending of this one really drives home my point that it's very likely that Jim Thompson was a Flannery O'Connor fan.

A Good Man is Hard to Find is a powerful collection of tales by an overlooked mistress of the form. Four out of five stars.

[Algernon (Darth Anyan) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am developing quite an addiction for the Southern flavor of American literature, and reading my first short story collection by Flannery O'Connor is more than just adding fuel to the flame of my interest. She is surpassing all my expectations and constantly going beyond the surface of things to touch on personal trauma that is often as unavoidable, tragic and soul reaving as a Greek tragedy. I am not sure if I should use the term 'gothic' for her stories. Yes, her subjects are usually deformed people, people with dissabilities or with communications problems, people with anger in their hearts or living in denial of the outside world. A world that keeps intruding on their fictional reality, mercilessly knocking them down and teaching them some harsh lessons... or not, to those still unwilling to see or hear. I am associating Gothic with romantic heroes or heroines and grotesque settings. O'Connor's characters are ordinary people engaged in routine, everyday activities. Things get scary, yes, but I didn't find any supernatural elements or larger than life heroes. Unless you consider the stories through the lens of the author's Roman Catholic faith, which admittedly plays a central role in her plot construction. You have the sinners, the trial she or he has to go through, and the revelation of grace, or mercy, or whatever else you might want to call the lesson of the day. Literary, I found every story in the collection to be a true gem of style and restrained intensity, the raw emotion that I have so admired in Carson McCullers veiled here in a more intellectual and self-assured presentation that peals back from the soul every pretense and affectation to aim at the core of the character. There is a sustained sense of doom, of bleakness and hopelessness that can get depressing after a while, but more than one story ends on a more upbeat note, with life going on, and maybe a little more wisdom and kindness settling down on the afflicted, and on the reader.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find is the opening gambit, and despite the title it is not about romantic searches for a suitable spouse. It is about a typical American family leaving on vacation, by car from Georgia to Florida I think. There's the working father, the housewife mother, two lively kids and a garrulous grandmother that is kind of annoying in her self-centered preoccupation. The outside world barges into their lives in the most brutal and unreasonable way, and I can't really think what the lesson is, other than to live life fully and meaningfully while we can, because it is so fragile and precious and easily wasted.

The River is possible even more disturbing than the first story, because here, instead of an old lady, we have a young boy sent by his indifferent parents to spend the day with a babysitter. This lady takes the boy to a Baptist ceremony, and I believe the moral is we need to be very careful about what we teach our children and how we protect them from harm.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own is one of the first stories to introduce the dynamics of a mother and daughter relationship, a recurrent theme in the collection. The first one protective, the other damaged and unable to face the world on its own. The messenger of change, or Fate, takes the form of a one-armed travelling handyman, who offers to fix the women's farm implements in exchange for food and lodging. The mother sees in him an opportunity to solve the worries about the future of her daughter, but the man may have plans of his own. One possible moral may be that from immoral and selfish actions may result positive outcomes, and that there is a streak of kindness and integrity even in the lost souls.

A Stroke of Good Fortune is the story of another selfish woman, one of modest origins who tries to escape from the perceived prison of the cycle of marriage and children and taking care of the land and of the family, choosing instead a form of living for yourself. Her internal monologue takes place as she painfully climbs the stairs to her apartment. She's a gossippy and mean spirited woman, with an acid tongue ( "She had expected Rufus to have turned out into somebody with some get in him. Well, he had about as much get as a floor mop."), but she is not refused grace, even if the one that descends on her may be different from the one she has prayed for. But God (or the author) knows best.

A Temple of the Holy Ghost is one of the few stories with a touch of humour, coming from a very smart young girl who receives the visit in her house of two older girls from a convent school. The title of the piece is a reference to the lesson taught in the convent that your body is a temple and you must treat it as such, not letting anybody (especially boys) touch it or disrespect it. The young witness/narrator is quick to dismiss the convent girls for their shallowness : "Neither of them could tell an intelligent thing and all their sentences began, 'You know this boy I know well one time he ...'" . But the story turns out to be not about the giggling adventures of these inept teenagers, but about a circus freak they see in town, and about accepting the other for what he is, not for what he looks like. This is also one of the stories where the Catholic viewpoint and the prayer as a way to salvation are made explicit.

The Artificial Nigger is my favorite piece in the collection, the most powerful condemnation of prejudice and narrow minded clinging to traditions. It has also some of the most beautiful and evocative paragraphs. An old man lives alone with his grandson in an isolated farm: "Mr Head looked like an ancient child and Nelson like a miniature old man." . Mr. Head decides that in order to keep the boy by his side, he must scare him away from the big city, so they take a trip together to see all the niggers and the craziness of the metropolis. Crazy their adventure is, but also eye opening about the dark motives and the cruel methods the old man is willing to use in order to reach his goal. Ultimately, the couple turn their back on the modern world and its more permissive way of thinking, retreating to their hillbilly abode to lick their wounds and fight with each other. Yet there is hope still for the old man, even at this late stage in his life:

"Mr Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it. He understood that it grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children. He understood it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little of it to take with him."

A Circle in the Fire is about another mother with a reclusive / disabled daughter. This time, the authoritarian lady is hard working and very proud of her farm, while the daughter hides in an upper room (autistic?) and timidly looks at the world from a safe distance. The status-quo is broken by visitors from the city: three young boys from an impoverished neighborhood, dreaming of a land of plenty and a life of leisure. "You take a boy thirteen years old is equal in meanness to a man twice his age. It's no telling what he'll think up to do. You never know where he'll strike next." I could draw parallels between this story and the parable of Job, seeing as we are tested in our self-sufficiency and pride and judged not by the wealth we amass but by the compassion we show.

A Late Encounter with the Enemy deals with one of the favorite Southern pastimes: glorifying the past, clinging to a false image of prosperity and gentility that was built on the backs of slavery and intransigence. Here an elderly lady is graduating at 64 from a college and wants her 104 years old grandfather to come and be on the stage as a symbol of Confederacy values:

"See him! See him! My kin, all you upstarts! Glorious upright old man standing for the old traditions! Dignity! Honor! Courage! See him!"

The old senile geezer is as fake as the General's uniform he wears, a gift from a television producer in need of fresh material for a feature. I would choose as soundtrack for this piece a Jethro Tull tune : "Living in the Past"

Good Country People revisits the mother / daughter menage, with the particularity that the daughter here is only physically disabled (a missing leg from a traffic accident). Her mind is as sharp as scissors, at least in theory, as she holds a university degree in philosophy, one that is pretty much useless to her as she vegetates in her mother's house. Fate knocks on their door in the shape of a travelling Bible salesman, of good country origins, according to his own account. It goes to show that not even intelligence makes us proof against the vicissitudes of fate or sweet-tongued crooks.

"Malebranche was right: we are not our own light. We are not our own light!" *

exclaims the young lady in despair, finding philosophy an insufficently strong support in her time of need.

*OK, so I didn't know who Malebranche is and I had to look it up, but it was worth it. It appears he was a French priest and philosopher from the 17 century who tried to reconcile the mind and the body, the will of God and causality in the real world.

The Displaced Person ends the collection in grand style, opening out the enclosed and often retrograde Southern culture to the modern influences and upheavals brought about by the second world war. The protagonist is another strong lady, managing a big farm with the help of 'white trash' servants and former slaves as workers. A priest persuades her to accept a family of Polish refugees from the concentration camps, and the change seems beneficial in the beginning, as the new man introduces modern machines and a more rigorous work ethic.

"Times are changing. Do you know what's happening to this world? It's swelling up. It's getting so full of people that only the smart thrifty energetic ones are going to survive."

The old hands rebel against the changes, and the lady is torn between being faithful to her traditions and accepting the modern times. Tragedy once again tests the characters to their very core. Peacocks feature prominently in the background as a glittering but endangered symbol of the past glories. The story ends with the priest trying to give solace to the guilty conscience of the owner, and my own review ends with an ambiguous message of hope, one that requires a strong character who accepts all humanity's faults and still has the faith to go on:

"We are all damned, but some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that there's nothing to see. It's a kind of salvation."

---

After the journey: I am now convinced that Flannery O'Connor knows not only how to write exceptional pages of literature, but she is well acquainted with all forms of physical and spiritual pain. Writing is a form of exorcising these demons, and possibly transmit the gift of grace to the reader. I am not a member of her confession, or ready to be converted, but I can respect and admire the results of her struggles.

[Florence (Lefty) MacIntosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrible horrible horrible, particularly the first two. Trust me, I'm not saying this just for effect. They take 'dark' to a whole new level - like staring down into a bottomless pit. Yet absolutely brilliant, more of a review later (maybe) once I've recuperated.

[ArturoBelano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bazı eserleri hakkıyla değerlendirebilmek için o ürünün ortaya çıktığı toplumsal yapıyı, ilişkileri, çelişkileri, geçmişten gelen ama hala kapanmamış hesapların dökümünü bilmek gerekiyor. Bazen de bununla birlikte yazarın hayat hikayesi ve içinde bulunduğu yapıyla ilişkilenme şeklini bilmek okumayı ve anlamı kolaylaştırıyor.

İyi İnsan Bulmak zor bu iki koşulun birlikte belirleyici olduğu ve yapıya hakim olunduğunda adeta edebiyat şölenine dönen bir okuma oldu benim için.

Kitap on ayrı ( ayrı mı dedim) öyküden oluşuyor ve her biri için ayrı ayrı değerlendirmede bulunmaktansa O’Connor edebiyatı üzerine konuşmayı tercih ederim.

Amerika’nın güneyinde adına ‘İncil kuşağı’ denilen bölgede ( Georgia) yaşamış, kendisi de inançlı( Katolik) bir yazar O’Connor. 39 yaşında hayatını kaybedene dek bir sürü sağlık sorunu ile boğuşuyor, felç kalıyor ve eserlerini bu dönemde veriyor. Bugün aynı zamanda Faulkner, Mccullers veTennese Williams ile birlikte adı güney gotiğinin kurucuları arasında geçiyor.Bence bu öykülerin hakkını vermek için 20. yüzyılın ilk yarısındaki (bugün hala çok değişmeyen) o güneyi bilmek gerekiyor. Aslında kimi yorumlarda geçen yabancı ama tandık hissi o güneyin bir benzerinin bu topraklarda bulunması ile ilgili, neyse geçelim bu konuyu.

Amerika’nın güneyinde yaşayanlara yönelik ( güneyden kasıt; beyaz, anglo sakson, inançlı,tercihen evanjelist, trump ya da çay partisi yanlısı,ırkçı, maço, homofobik, kadın düşmanı) kullanılan bir kelime var; Redneck. İşte O’ Connor edebiyatının temel meselesi bu tiplerdir.

Kuzey- güney savaşı bitmiş ama yenilginin izleri hala tazedir ( general Sash) . O’Connor bizi o yenilginin izi ile damgalanmış ve ayrıcalıklarını yitirmiş muhafazakar güneylilerin dünyasında gezdirir. Irksal üstünlükler ‘ tarih olmuş’, ayrıcalıklar yitirilmiş, değişime ayak uyduramayan, bunların üstüne 29 buhranı ile ekonomik statüleri yerle yeksan beyazların dünyasının çivisi çıkmıştır. Bu çivisi çıkmış dünyaya cehalet, riyakarlık, ikiyüzlü ahlak anlayışları ve ellerinde İncilleri ile cevap olmaya çalışan redneck’in ayarı bozulmuştur ki kitaba adını veren İyi İnsan Bulmak Zor öyküsünün baş kötüsünün( sanki babaanne iyi bir insan da) lakabının Ayarsız olmasının elbette bir anlamı vardır. Bu öyküde ayrıca edebiyat tarihinin belki de en bencil karakteri ile karşılaşırız; babaanne. Sürekli iyi insan bulmanın zorluğundan bahseder ki güçlü bir inanç eğilimi vardrır ama o inanç bile onu iyi yapamayacaktır. Tam burada karşımıza O’connor’un dini konferanslara konuşmacı olacak kadar inançlı yazarımızın inanç ve kötülüğün iki ayrı uç olmadığı, inanmanın kişiyi iyi bir insan yapmaması, dinin pazarlanması( gerçek hristiyanlık bu değil) üzerine içeriden sunduğu sert eleştiri karşımıza çıkıyor.Bu alınıt Temiz Köylüler’den “ Oğlanın ağzı öfkeyle gerilmişti, umarım o saçmalıklara falan inandığımı sanmıyorsundur dedi kibirli bir sesle ve alınmışcasına.” İncil satıyor olabilirim ama neyin ne olduğunu biliyorum ben. O kadar saf değilim herhalde, ben de herkes kadar bilirim işimi. “ Bugün bu topraklarının edebiyatçısının bu satış işine dair tek kelime( Mehmet Eroğlu’nun var çabası ama edebi olarak çok güçlü değil) edememesini de kenara not edelim.

O’Connor farklı öyküler yazıyor, karakterler değişiyor, evler değişiyor ama yarattığı o tekinsiz ortam hiç değişmiyor, sırtınızda sürekli bir ürperti hissediyorsunuz hikayeleri takip ederken. Uzun öyküde dikkati canlı tutmak, gerilimi son raddeye kadar taşımak zor olsa gerek ama anlattıklarını o kadar iyi tanıyorki bu zorluğundan üstesinden geliyor. Öykülerin sonunda karşımıza çıkan o şaşırtıcı sonları güneyin hiç şaşırtmayan rutinine bir nanik olarak okuyor ve sen de az değilsin O’connor bacı diyorum.

Sonuç olarak; ne iyi ne de kötü olabilmiş, hadi Spinoz’nın ağzı ile konuşayım zaten içinde bulunduğu çürümüş toplumsal yapı tarafından üst belirlenmiş ve ama yine de Nazım’ı unutmadan ‘ kabahatin çoğu da sende’ denilecek güneyli kardeşlerimizin, sıradan kötülükleri ve inancın onamadığı yaraları ile hemhal olmak için okuyun, okutun.

" kapa çeneni, bobby lee," dedi ayarsız. " şu hayatta gerçekten zevkli olan tek bir şey yok."

[Mark André · Rating 5 out of 5]

What you come to expect from Ms. O'Connor: Quick. Descriptive. Weird. Bizarre. Disturbing. Ambiguous.
Not for everyone. Fun.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joyce Carol Oates says (in a review in the New York Times)

no postwar and posthumous literary reputation of the twentieth century, with the notable exception of Sylvia Plath, has grown more rapidly and dramatically than that of Flannery O’Connor, whose work has acquired a canonical status since her death in 1964.

And she compares Flannery’s rep with that of Carson McCullers and Truman Capote who, sez Joyce, have gone down.

Which surprised me. I mean, no one could dispute The Heart is a Lonely Hunter or Breakfast at Tiffany’s or In Cold Blood, but plenty of people might like to quibble with Wise Blood and its crazy ass ilk.

Gee, I wish they’d publish the Authors Hot 100 every year so we could see whose reputations have gone up and whose have gone down. That would be fun.
As to what makes them go up and down, I guess that’s a secret sauce. Likes of us don’t get to know.

Well, anyhow. I should tell you that I’m in a bit of a quandary here, in this review.

With Flannery O’Connor I’m in the most uncomfortable position of greatly enjoying and admiring a writer who I know absolutely I don’t understand, and further, that if I did, I wouldn’t like any part of what she was telling me. This is because she was a consciously Christian writer, and Catholic to boot. Many, maybe all, of these stories are like – or actually are – parables. Sometimes they become explicitly mystical :

He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.

Say what? What was that again?

So when I find myself loving these strange, menacing, hilarious stories with their deliciously dozy characters and bent-backwards dialogue, the Christian message about sin and redemption and grace and so forth just goes whizzing right over my head.

It’s rather like buying Playboy for the pictures of the naked ladies and not bothering to read any of the terrific articles at all.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a fantastic way she has in drawing her stories. So vivid, varied characters, in all these stories regardless of the social strata of the people they are all searching for the same thing, grace. Knowing this author's background leads to a better understanding of her stories. Her long illness, she suffered with lupus, her Catholicism in the bible banging South and her people watching are all present in Jr stories. Yes, they are dark, her title story A good man is hard to find, left me reeling. The Displaced person contained her favorite bird the Peacock. A temple of the holy ghost took me in a small way back to Catholic school days. I am in awe of her talent, the symbolism contained in these stories is frankly brilliant, she even uses the weather and the sun to bring home the message being conveyed. Brilliant.

[Tim Null · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story is grim. The last story is grimmer. In the middle, there's a lawn jockey.

[Bên Phía Nhà Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trong một tiểu luận bàn về việc viết, nhà văn viết truyện ngắn theo trường phái tối giản lừng danh người Mỹ Raymond Carver đề cập đến những thiên tài văn chương có khả năng tạo ra một thế giới theo đặc điểm riêng của mình. Phong cách hay đặc điểm riêng của mỗi cây viết tài năng giúp kiến tạo ra những không gian mang dấu ấn đặc sắc, chính vì thế có một thế giới dưới cái nhìn của Carver, và lần lượt, của Faulkner, James Joyce, Hemingway, Chekhov... Là một tượng đài trên văn đàn Mỹ, Flannery O’Connor, trong khoảng thời gian ngắn ngủi 39 năm tại thế, đã để lại hai tiểu thuyết và 32 truyện ngắn, mà thế giới hư cấu của miền Nam nước Mỹ đẫm đặc bạo lực và tinh thần tôn giáo viết bằng phong cách Gô tích, vĩnh viễn trở thành một tầm mức thành tựu mà có ít nhà văn khác đạt được. Tập truyện ngắn nổi tiếng nhất của O’Connor, Khó mà tìm được một người tốt, đã trở thành hình mẫu kinh điển cho nghệ thuật truyện ngắn hiện đại.

Khó mà tìm được một người tốt gồm mười truyện ngắn tập trung khắc họa đời sống thường nhật của người dân ở miền Nam nước Mỹ: một gia đình nhỏ trong một chuyến đi đến Florida, hai ông cháu từ miền quê lần đầu đi tàu ra thành phố lần đầu nhìn thấy những người da màu, một anh chàng bán Kinh thánh rong nay đây mai đó, một gia đình người tị nạn đến giúp việc ở một trang trại nhỏ… Song le, những câu chuyện rất đỗi bình thường ấy lại ẩn chứa những kịch tính bất ngờ, nơi yếu tố bạo lực làm rúng động đức tin, nơi sự tàn nhẫn của con người sinh ra từ mông muội, nơi cái ác được thực thi một cách thản nhiên do những ghen tị nhỏ nhen mù quáng…

O’Connor có biệt tài xây dựng cốt truyện cuốn hút, với những cú ngoặt phi logic đầy tinh quái. Bất ngờ là yếu tố chủ đạo trong truyện của bà, liên tiếp gây ra những cú sốc cho độc giả, là nơi thi triển nghệ thuật kể chuyện của mình: viết như một hành động khám phá. O’Connor tâm sự rằng bà thường xuyên không biết câu chuyện của mình sẽ tiến triển thế nào khi viết một truyện ngắn. Chính bà cũng không đoán được kết truyện cho đến khi đến gần sát đó. Những tình tiết diễn ra, đối với bà, là không thể tránh khỏi. Các câu chuyện bình dị trong Khó mà tìm được một người tốt đều bắt đầu êm ả, chẳng hạn một thằng bé được người trông trẻ dẫn về nhà mình, một bà già và cô con gái ngồi trên hiên nhà nhìn thấy một người đàn ông lạ xuất hiện trên đường, một vị tướng già chuẩn bị đến dự lễ tốt nghiệp của cháu gái. Sự xuất hiện bất ngờ của những nhân vật lạ kỳ chính là yếu tố phá tan những bối cảnh yên bình đó. Và hiện rõ mồn một trong những nhân vật nghịch dị ấy là cái ác. Các nhân vật của bà thực hiện cái ác một cách đột ngột, thản nhiên, không nao núng, như thể đã kích cho những mâu thuẫn đến cái bờ vực của phun trào. Câu chuyện của O’Connor được kể bằng người kể chuyện dửng dưng, như vị Chúa trời không can thiệp, để những mặt trái đen tối của tâm hồn con người, những góc khuất, bày ra trên trang viết.

Không phải ngẫu nhiên mà nhiều đạo diễn điện ảnh nổi tiếng chuyên dòng phim bạo lực lại công khai thừa nhận sự ảnh hưởng của Flannery O’Connor lên các bộ phim của mình: anh em nhà Cohen coi Khó mà tìm được một người tốt là một trong những tác phẩm bắt buộc phải đọc và ngưỡng mộ một cách thành kính O’Connor, còn Quentin Tarantino thì coi bà như hình mẫu về sáng tạo nghệ thuật. Người xem có thể tìm thấy sự tương đồng giữa những bộ phim của họ và truyện ngắn của O’Connor: yếu tốt bạo lực được triển khai tràn lan, và nhân tính con người khi đương đầu với bạo lực thì bị bẻ cong hay hủy diệt.

Như chính tác giả đã giãi bày về truyện ngắn “Khó mà tìm được một người tốt” của mình, O’Connor cho biết những lý do sử dụng yếu tố bạo lực bởi bà phát hiện ra rằng, “bạo lực có khả năng một cách kỳ lạ trong việc đưa các nhân vật trở lại với hiện thực và chuẩn bị cho họ chấp nhận giây phút được ân sủng.” Những giây phút đốn ngộ, chính vì thế, bàng bạc trong các truyện ngắn của bà, là lúc nhân vật nhận ra bản chất thực sự của mình, của đồng loại, như chính giây phút người bà trong “Khó mà tìm được một người tốt”, hay người ông trong “Gã da đen nhân tạo” nhận ra sự hèn kém và kiêu ngạo của bản thân và đau khổ mà khát khao được khoan dung từ sự thấu đáo của Chúa, hay đơn giản là người phụ nữ ảo tưởng mình bệnh sắp chết nhưng nhận ra cái gì thực ra chờ đón mình trong “Cú may mắn bất ngờ”. Các câu chuyện của O’Connor thường bị coi là nghịch dị, nhưng với chính tác giả, bà lại coi là thật đúng như vậy. Bạo lực không bao giờ bị bà, một cây viết nghiêm túc, coi là cứu cánh. Các nhân vật được bà đẩy vào những tính huống oái ăm, bị giằng xé trong những hoàn cảnh khắc nghiệt làm rúng động tâm can, thậm chí đối mặt với cái chết, bởi chỉ trong những cảnh huống cực đoan như vậy thì chân tính của con người mới bộc lộ, cái chân tính mà nhân vật sẽ mang theo mình đến vĩnh cửu.

Bằng một giọng kể lôi cuốn cộng với phong cách dựng truyện hấp dẫn, giàu kịch tính, đầy hài hước đen, Flannery O’Connor đã dựng lên cả một thế giới đặc trưng của văn chương miền Nam nước Mỹ, tàn bạo, không khoan nhượng với những chi tiết nghịch dị, ám ảnh, đầy chất hài hước đen, xoay quanh những nhân vật mà dường như chung cuộc họ đều phải đứng trước sự phán xét của một Thượng đế vô hình, khắc nghiệt, không chút từ tâm.

[☾❀Apple✩ Blossom⋆｡˚ · Rating 4 out of 5]

“He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.



This is my first Flannery O'Connor and I must say, I did not expect the darkness. I am quite a fan of Southern literature, and it is looking for that flavor that I picked this one up. And it did not disappoint! It reminded me of a cross between Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and The Dubliners. Each story is a portrait of the normal abnormalities of humanity; of the vices of cowardly, violence, prejudice, self-pity, hypocrisy and xenophobia; of the misinterpretation of everything that is good and wholesome until it's bent for one's personal gain. There is no evolution in the characters, no redemption: just raw humanity, like in Joyce's work. Kept me glued to the pages.

[Mevsim Yenice · Rating 4 out of 5]

İyi İnsan Bulmak Zor, on öyküden oluşuyor. Hepsinin ana teması bana sorarsanız, kitabın isminden de anlaşılacağı gibi karakterlerin arasından neredeyse hiç iyi insan çıkmaması. Daha doğrusu öyle ince bir çizgide ilerliyor ki bu ayırım, bazı öykülerde fark ediyoruz, çok doğal insanlık hallerimiz bile bazen kötülüğün kıyısında gezinen bir karakter yapabilir bizi.

Kimileri kötü karakterlerden rahatsız olur, okuyamaz, onlardan biriyseniz kitap size göre değil.

Ben bazı kitaplara “atmosfer” kitabı diyorum. İyi İnsan Bulmak Zor, benim kategorime göre onlardan. Tekinsiz bir atmosfere buyur ediyor okuyucuyu. Özellikle “Yapma Zenci” ve “Ateşte Bir Çember” öyküleri oldukça gerilim yüklüydü, okurken gerilim filmi izliyor gibi hissettim kendimi. Film demişken, yazarın anlatımına değinmenin tam sırası sanırım. İnanılmaz bir hikaye anlatıcısı O’Connor. Yabancısı olduğumuz coğrafyaları öyle bir resmetmiş ki -evet resmetmiş diyorum çünkü muazzam betimlemiş, anlatmış- film izler gibi gözünüzde canlanıyor her şey.

Öyküler uzun, detaylı. Cehalet, kötülük, bencillik, dindarlık gibi ağır konuları işlediği için belki de zaman zaman yorucu. Karakterler iyi ve kötü olma arasında direnme özelliğine sahipler, bir türlü tam emin olamıyoruz nasıl olduklarından. Gerçek hayatta da hayatımızdaki kişilerin iyi mi kötü mü olduğuna karar veremediğimizdeki yorgunluğu yaşatıyor okurken, bu anlamda da çok çok başarılı. Kitap, üzerine düşündükçe demlenen, bir süre sonra esas değeri anlaşılan bir kitap bana sorarsanız. Cebelleşirken biraz daha farklı düşünüyordum ama şu an yorum girerken fark ettim ki aslında kitabı baya beğenmişim.

Okumanızı tavsiye ederim. Benim O connor ile tanışmam bu kitap sayesinde oldu, son olmayacağına eminim.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flannery O’Conner was America’s answer to Dostoevsky. That is, she wrote brilliantly about unpleasant characters to whom terrible things happened, and was obsessed with an opaque morality. A Southern writer, her stories described a region cramped and ignorant at best, grotesque at worst. A deeply committed Catholic writer, her stories did little to advance the appeal of her faith. (Though her Catholic characters are certainly more appealing in contrast to her backward Protestant ones.)

O’Conner’s characters are mundanely unpleasant. Ignorance, racism, classism, and self righteousness are their common currency. A few are educated or intelligent, but that mostly works to heighten their misery. Her old people are the worst — stubborn, arrogantly self righteous and lacking all self awareness. The final judgement passed on the loquacious grandmother of the title story was spot on:

”She would have been a good woman,’ the Misfit said, ‘if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.’”

Her youngest characters are the sharpest, the most self aware. Their precocious intellect, however, leaves them caustic and embittered rather than rescuing them.

These stories are sour gems. They are pustules of misery wrapped in writing that’s sublime.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, the best short story collection that I've read. Flannery O'Connor's prose can make you sing. However, the songs are predominantly dark, tragic and sad. The most appropriate image that I can think of is that scene in The Wizard of Oz when the tornado is ravaging the Kansas farm of Dorothy's parents and then picture her singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" while the bicycle-riding wicked witch is smiling at her.

Quite an appropriate picture because Flannery O'Connor was born in Georgia and Dorothy is from Kansas. This collection of 10 short stories with A Good Man is Hard to Find as the banner story is all set in Tennessee and Georgia. The stories are all about common town folks during O'Connor's life; this book was first published in 1953 and she died in 1964 (my birthyear). O'Connor, a devout Catholic, said that her objective in writing was to reveal the mystery of God's grace in everyday life and this stated purpose does not come on a silver platter when she serves you her stories. You have to think. At times you would even say, "Where is God's grace in here?" You have to reflect at the end of each story as God can be in the characters' suffering: it is when it's dark when you see the stars. This is not an easy read but a very engaging one. The twists and turns of the events are all very unexpected. Unlike Dorothy's rainbow, the colors of O'Connor's rainbow are all dark and bleak. It is up to you, the reader, how you can transform your life to put colors in your own rainbow.

O'Connor's short stories are different from the ones that I so far enjoyed. Alice Munro's stories in The Progress of Love are so well told you would love her to write several others about her characters. Raymond Carver's strength say in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is in presenting slices of life capturing its minutiae very distinctly and closing his story abruptly as if he is freezing the scene. Haruki Murakami's sparse prose and imagination in say Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman are something that are himself alone and put him in his own league.

In contrast, above the beauty of her prose and the darkness of her stories, O'Connor's strength is on unpredicability of her plot and the twist that she presents towards the end. Although these stories are not easy to read, me being unfamiliar with some Southern English words, i.e., think Alice Walker's The Color Purple, you will hold on to each story and eagerly wait - breath controlled - for the last paragraph. Then since you liked the story, I just couldn't help but move to the next until you finish all the 10 stories.

SPOILERS ALERT! (I just don't want to forget some of the stories that I found amazing so I want to capture them here for my future reference).

A Good Man is Hard to Find The grandmother is a mouthy kick-ass Georgian woman. There is Misfit who is a prison escapee. I laughed on the scene where the grandma made a mistake of referring to a Tennessee farm when in fact that was in Georgia. They had an accident. And the Misfit and his cohorts came and killed the family one by one. Last to get killed was the grandma.

The River The orphan 5-y/o boy was drowned in the same river where he was baptized. Sadder than the first story.

The Artificial Nigger Very arresting introduction. The relationship of the white grandfather to his white grandson is one for the books. Reminded me of the travails between the father and son in an Italian classic movie, The Bicycle. The treachery of the grandfather is mind-boggling similar to St. Peter's denial of Jesus. I wonder how it would affect the child when he grows up. Very moving.

A Late Encounter with the Enemy The funniest. I love reading stories about old men. It reminded me of Balzac's Old Goriot. While reading, I was thinking of my 93-y/o father-in-law who is still alive. Although my father-in-law is not as grumpy and ascerbic and young girl-crazy as the General here, it is always fun to talk to him.

Good Country People A mother and her 23-y/o Ph.D. daughter who had an artificial leg were visited by a 19-y/o man who was supposed to be a nice Christian Bible salesman. He lured the daughter to come with him to a barn and the daughter thought she was in love. She was asked to remove her artificial leg and then the young man revealed his true identity. What a catch.

The Displaced Person Black workers are employed in a farm by a lady landowner. Until one day, a priest arrives with Polish family who left their country because Jews are being prosecuted by Hitler. So, the family will work as farmhands also. The Displaced Person, called DP is the head of the family. "Black or white, they are the same" says the lady landowner who is always worried about money.

6 out of 10 amazing short stories, each of them worthy of 5 stars. I need to read her other books before I die.

[Davide · Rating 4 out of 5]

No, non è un paese per vecchie
(Ma è pieno di vecchie. E di bambine, e di ragazzine)

Camminiamo, un mattino, su marciapiedi di città, verso una grossa colazione:
"Cosa ti ricordi di quello che hai letto di Flannery O'Connor?"

"Ricordo che mi piacevano molto non solo i racconti ma anche la sua figura... l'allevamento dei pavoni: aveva questa fissa per i pavoni... il discorso religioso... A un certo punto racconta che, arrivata a casa dopo aver comprato L'idiota di Dostoevskij, la madre le dice: 'solo una come te poteva comprare un libro con un titolo del genere!' [...] Un'altra volta racconta che da bambina aveva insegnato a un pollo a camminare all'indietro: 'e c'ero anche io, lì vicino al pollo, a incoraggiarlo... dopo aver vissuto un momento così, tutto è stato un anticlimax'... "

*************

"Sai che ho letto un altro racconto di Flannery?... Molto belli, ma sono tristissimi!"

"Sì, cosa ti aspettavi? Savannah, la mamma cattiva, il lupus, il pollo che cammina all'indietro...
Mi sembra il minimo"

*************

"... stavo pensando... devi essere un po' sadico per goderti fino in fondo questi racconti... sono così crudeli!"

"... tutti gli scrittori sono un po' cattivi..."

"ma io parlavo dei lettori..."

"appunto"

**************

E alla fine, nell'ultimo racconto, compaiono davvero i pavoni: sono le ultime, sparute sopravvivenze di una passione del primo marito di Mrs. McIntyre, da molti anni seppellito nel cimitero dietro il campo di granturco. Perché averli in giro gli dava l'idea di essere ricco. Ma ora, soltanto il prete che ha fatto arrivare i profughi polacchi si distrae a guardare i soli delle loro piume, e fa strani suoni con la gola.

[pochi anni prima, altri pavoni quasi allo stato brado zampettavano in Loving di Henry Green]

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this 1949 classic, you will find every kind of nasty character and offensive prejudice imaginable. Really ugly stuff! This is the second time I've started reading this ten story collection (distracted by other books) and even after several years, I still remembered the first story entitled The Misfit. It is a most horrific killer of a read. Truly.

You will also find stories of sadness, despair, more prejudice, deceit, hard lessons learned, more deceit, a collector of bizarre souvenirs....that leads to even more deceit, and yes, more prejudice.

A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND is one strange dark read......but entertaining!

[Deniz Balcı · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flannery O’connor, Amerikan Gotiği’nin öncesine, Büyük Buhran’ın içine doğmuş; ülkesinin aidiyet kurduğu ya da kuramadığı taraflarına öykülerinde kinayeli şekilde yer vermiş, yazarlığını ‘ayna’ gibi kullanabilmiş yetenekli yazarlardan bir tanesi. O’connor gibi yazarları, yazdığı zamandan ve toplumdan bağımsız değerlendirmeye çalışırsak büyük yanılgılara düşmemiz kaçınılmaz olur. O yüzden olabildiğince analoji kurmaya çalışmak doğru olur.

Öyküleri ilk okumaya başladığımda Hemingway ve Steinbeck ikilisinin Amerikasına o kadar sert maruz kaldığımı düşündüm ki, ardılı olarak Oconnor’ın bir tekradan mı ibaret olduğu fikrine kapıldım. Ancak hikayeler ilerledikçe dönemdaşı sayabileceğimiz Tennese Williams, James Baldwin, Salinger gibi yazarların birbirine öykünmeyen edebiyatlarının özgünlüğünde bir edebiyat bulduğumu rahatlıkla söyleyebilirim. Yani Amerikan edebiyatı diyip geçmeyin.

Kitapta 10 öykü bulunuyor, bunlardan bir tanesi (Mülteci) uzun öykü olarak yazılmış. Hikayelere ayrı ayrı bakmak en doğru değerlendirme şekli olacaktır diye düşünsem de, genel bakacak olursak hepsinin omurgasında dini bir altmetin olduğunu açıkça görebiliriz. Hayatının son yıllarını dindar bir münzevi olarak yaşamış Oconnor’dan bu tarz öyküler okumak beni şaşırtmadı ancak dini alt metinlerin insanların yozlaşması üzerinden aktarılması (haliyle ortaya dinin yozlaştırıcı etkisini de açıkça koyduğundan) beni biraz şaşırttı.

Tüm öykülerde Amerikan kırsalındaki içine kapanmış, o meşhur rüyaya ucundan köşesinden bile dahil olamamış, cahil ve yoksun insanlar başrolde. Ve bu insanlar cehaletle o kadar bütünler ki iyiliğin de ne olduğunu bilmiyorlar. Kötü gördükleri o kadar kötü değil, iyi gördükleri aslında hiç iyi olmayabiliyor; ya da bugün iyi olanın yarın ne olacağı, dün kötü olanın bugün ne olduğu belli olmuyor. Güney Amerika kaynıyor, bütün vatandaşların elinde bir incil, ya inanıyor ya inanmıyor ama erdemsizliğin tarihi yazılıyor.

Diğer taraftan hikayelerin geneline hakim olan bir başka ana konu ise kölelik muhabbeti. Kaldırılalı uzun süre geçmiş olmasına rağmen, kendini halen siyahlardan kat be kat üstün gören ve bir şekilde siyahın üzerindeki erkliğini, her eylemi ve söylemiyle kanıtlamaya çalışan geçtiğimiz yüzyılın zavallı insanları var öykülerde. Bunu yoğunlukla hissetmemek mümkün değil. Gerçi şaşırmamak lazım, bu konuda bize en büyük umutlardan birini veren Harper Lee bile seneler sonra, ölmeden önce gelip umutlarımıza çelme takmayı ihmal etmemişti ‘Tespih Ağacıyla’. Dönemin aynası O’connor ne yapsın yani.

Amerikan edebiyatı malum, 1950’lerden sonra eli münasip yerlerinde yazarların, acayip devrimleriyle parça pinçik olmadan önce cidden iyi yazarlar çıkarmıştı. O’connor kesinlikle onlardan bir tanesi. Hemen tüketirim öyküleri, hamburger etkisi yaratır sanmayın, öyle değil. Bayağı güldür güldür edebiyat buradaki. Diğer taraftan konuları ele alırken ki ironikliği ve yarattığı atmosfer kesinlikle en büyük başarısı. 30 sayfalık bir hikayede okuyucu alıp, bu kadar başka bir coğrafyanın gerçekliğine güm diye bırakmasını kesinlikle başarılı buldum.

En beğendiğim öykülerden bahsetmem gerekirse: ‘İyi İnsan Bulmak Zor’, ‘Yapma Zenci’, ‘Ateşte Bir Çember’, ‘Temiz Köylüler’ ve ‘Mülteci’. 10’da 5, hiç fena sayılmaz:)

Bu öyküler içerisinde de atmosfer açısından birbirine inanılmaz tezat durumlar var. Bunu ayrıntılı olarak anlatmak yerine bu beş öyküyü, onu çekebilecek, filmsel biçemiyle en uygun gördüğüm yönetmenle eşleştireceğim, bir fikir edinilmesi amaçlı:)

‘İyi İnsan Bulmak Zor’ kesinlikle Quentin Tarantino’nun elinden çıkacak bir filmin öyküsü olacaktır. ‘Yapma Zenci’ Yasujiro Ozu ustanın anlatımıyla olağanüstü olabilirdi. Ustanın anlatım tarzı ve hikayeleriyle çok örtüşüyor. ‘Ateşte Bir Çember’ elbette Michael Haneke eliyle filmleşebilir. Funny Games ve Cache arası bir yapıt çıkacaktır. ‘Temiz Köylüler’ Lars von Trier tarafından, ‘Mülteci’de Ken Loach tarafından filmleştirilebilir. Bu noktada öykülerin atmosferlerine dair de en kısa yoldan bilgi verebilmişimdir umarım. (Sinemayı takip eden arkadaşlara en azından.)

Son olarak eklemek istediğim ise Oconnor’ın son öyküsü olan ‘Mülteci’de modernleşen Amerikan insanına getirdiği eleştiri beni çok etkiledi. Her hali ile oportünist olmayı öğrenen bir bireyin, yeri geldiğinde dini bile pragmatik eksiklikleri doğrultusunda samimiyetle nasıl içselleştirdiğini gözler önüne sermesi, aslında bizim de çok yabancısı olduğumuz bir şey değil. Bir de burda karşılaşmak buruk buruk gülümsememe sebep oldu. Daha çok beyin kanaması geçirecektir insanlar bu kafayla.

Peki Nazi kampındaki kuzeninden bahseden Polonyalıya hala fikirlerini dikte etmeye çalışan kadın: Bunlar hep cehaletin en korkunç resmi.

Herkesin ama özellikle hikaye severlerin okumasını tavsiye ederim.

İyi okumalar!

7.5/10

“Gece boyunca oğlanı baştan çıkardığını kurup durdu. Baş başa yürüdüklerini, iyice uzaklaşıp sonunda kendilerini arka taraftaki tarlaların ilerisindeki ahırın orada bulduklarını, ahırda olayların kaçınılmaz bir şekilde geliştiğini ve onu tereyağından kıl çekercesine baştan çıkardığını, tabii her şey olup bittikten sonra üstüne bir de oğlanın pişmanlığıyla uğraşmak zorunda kaldığını hayal etti. Gerçek deha ne yapar eder kendi fikrini zekâca kendinden aşağı olanlara benimsetmeyi başarırdı. Oğlanın pişmanlığını alıp yoğurduğunu ve o pişmanlığı hayata dair daha derin bir kavrayışa dönüştürdüğünü hayal etti. Onun bütün utancını alacak ve faydalı bir şeye dönüştürecekti.”

[Tony Vacation · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his novel Feast Day of Fools, James Lee Burke taught me about a wonderful medieval festival called, you guessed it, the Feast of Fools. The idea is simple: during whichever day local churches decide to hold this holiday, all social roles and obligations are inverted. The peasant is essentially given carte blanche to openly mock his superiors, to blaspheme the church, to shamelessly imbibe spirits without restraint, to monger among the whores, to covet whatever thy neighbor’s got, and to otherwise engage in any manner of debauchery that the brain can spew forth. And then, come next morning, with their bodies purged from excesses of sin, all the peasants are transubstantiated into penitents, who go shuffling to the alter and are instantly absolved of everything they did the day before.

In Burke’s novel it’s the author’s pet theory that most people live their lives as if it were a never-ending Feast of Fools, especially those claiming to be Christians as an excuse to feel morally superior towards others, using the righteousness of their faith as a rationale for all the hate and violence they suffer upon others. This particular disillusioned, Roman-Catholic-raised southern-boy can’t argue with that.

It’s obvious that O’Connor is an influence of Burke's, and in the sixty years that have passed between the writing of his novel and O’Connor’s excellent collection of short stories A Good Man is Hard to Find, little has changed.

With a serrated saw blade of an eye for satire, O’Connor goes about dismantling the men and women of her Southern American surroundings, showing their grotesque ideas of religion and behavior as the petty, mean-spirited shams that they are. Her favorite archetypes are the elderly, who think age has given them the license to be as cruel and ignorant as they please. She often pairs these characters with a child, some disenfranchised waif who is a blank slate ready to transpose the awfulness of their elders. But let’s not forget those characters O’Connor is most famous for: the physically handicapped and mutilated. O’Connor herself battled a lifelong affliction of lupus, which, sadly, took her life before she was even 40; so it’s no wonder why she would be preoccupied by people perceived as “deformed” and the ways in which these stereotypes shape a person’s life, for good or for the worst possible ill.

This collection is borderline flawless, starting off with the punch-to-the-gut bravura that is the title story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, which serves as a perfect example of Burke’s theory of the perpetual Feast of Fools. Equally impressive is the final story, “The Displaced Person,” which tackles that horrible truth of how easy it is for any given person to be an avatar of evil, such as the kind involved with orchestrating and carrying out the Holocaust. “Circle of Fire”, “The River” and “Good Country People” follow close behind as chilling takes on the malleability of Christian acts of faith and charity, and “The Life You Save May be Your Own,” is probably the most disturbing and unsettling story of the collection.

“The Artificial Nigger” is an impressive and less morbid satire of the ignorance of racism, while “A Late Encounter with the Enemy,” reads like a precursor to every single story George Saunders has ever written. The weakest entries in the collection are “A Stroke of Good Fortune” and “The Temple of the Holy Ghost,” but any lacking on their part is due to the strength of all the other stories.

This is a wonderful collection by one of the most powerful satirists working in the Southern Gothic tradition. I expect I will be devouring up the rest of her tragically few writings, directly.

[Peter Boyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd call myself a short story fan, and I've been meaning to read something from the eminent Flannery O'Connor for ages. Last week I came across an old Donna Tartt interview where she mentioned her as a big influence, so I felt that the time was finally right.

As is common in the Southern Gothic genre, these stories contain distorted characters and sinister situations. There is often an uneasy atmosphere, as if something terrible is on the verge of happening. Many of the tales contain a disabled character (which I've learned O'Connor was) or sarcastic teenage girls (which mirrors the author's adolescence, as far as I know). Racial prejudice is a common theme, either front and centre, or slowly simmering in the background.

From what I gather, it is the title story that made her name, and it still retains the capacity to disturb. It must have been quite shocking when it was first published back in the 1950s. The rest of the collection continues in that unsettling tone, and some of the stories worked better for me than others. As to how much I enjoyed reading them, it's hard to say. I was pretty relieved to finish the book, to tell the truth. But I won't forget its haunting, macabre world in a hurry.

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

All ten of the stories in this anthology are depressing, macabre and grotesque. Their strength lies in their vivid description of life in the South for the many poor, uneducated and disadvantaged.

Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) writes in the Southern Gothic Style. Disabilities, sanity, race, religion and social inequalities are scrutinized in a cold detached manner. Not a pinch of sentimentality is to be found. Her writing is remarkably vivid. First published in 1953, the collection opens a window on life in the South during the first half of the 20th century. One can draw parallels with life there today

I did not “enjoy” reading this. I found it excruciatingly difficult, but I feel this was O’Connor’s intention. She meant to shake her readers, and she does. I am glad I read the stories, but I will not be picking up more. I understand d her message and this is enough.

Below, each of the stories are reviewed in the order they appear in the book. Read THE ARTIFICIAL NIGGER first. I think it is the best. If you cannot stomach this, do not even try the rest. It is the only one with a pinch, mind you only a pinch, of something good that lifts you above the gloom of the rest. I recommend reading them with an interval of several days between each.

A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND
(1 star)
Horrible, but realistic. The “Misfit”, a dangerous criminal, kills a family of six traveling in their car. Each is killed one by one. Gruesome and violent and what is the message?

THE RIVER
(1 star)
A little boy of 4 or 5 years is taken by his babysitter, Mrs. Cronin, to a preacher who is to wash away the child’s pain in the river, the “River of Life, of God and of God’s Blood”. The preacher is to pray for the child’s “sick” mother too, in reality, she has only a hangover. He is baptized, but has said his name is Bevel. This is not true; his being the name of the preacher! The boy walks the next day alone to the river and tries to baptize himself, but he drowns. Again, I do not understand the message. Does God help or doesn’t he? Is it a blessing that the boy is released from his awful existence?


THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN
(1 star)
A disabled, poor tramp stops at a house where a widowed old lady and her retarded daughter live. The mother encourages the tramp to marry her daughter and live with them, and so help in repairing the house and doing chores. She gives them money for a honeymoon. He takes off in the woman’s repaired car, leaves the daughter along the way and drives off to Mobile, Alabama. Again, this says nothing to me.

A STROKE OF GOOD FORTUNE
(2 stars)
An exhausted woman Is attempting to pull herself up flights and flights of stairs. At each landing she talks with the tenant there—a teacher, a secretary, to a chiropractor who tells her she is pregnant. The trip up the stairs is excruciatingly long and difficult. She realizes she is probably pregnant, which she does not want to be! I just wanted the story to end. I was glad we did not have to get to the top of the stairs. Her misery was palpable, but what was the story’s point other than to describe the plight of a distraught, struggling and suffering woman?! I felt her pain, but do not like the story. I appreciate the writing though.

A TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST
(3 stars)
Two 14-year-old girls at a convent spend the weekend at the house of their 12-year-old second cousin. The two girls are in their young teens and all they think about is boys and the mystery of sex. The younger child is curious too. The older girls go to a fair and tell the younger what they saw—a human being that was both woman and man. The girls go back to school and we are told the fair was closed down. What the story does well is draw young adolescent girls’ queries about “the facts of life” in a convent setting. Their ideas are confused and jumbled up with religious explanations. Adults do not explain sex in clear text. The details vividly capture how adolescents try to make sense of what no one explains. What is described may be accurate, but as with all the stories so far, absolutely none of the characters are appealing. Should the world be described consistently in such dark tones?!

THE ARTIFICIAL NIGGER
(5 stars)
Finally, a story that I thought was really great. It is about a grandfather and grandson that take a train ride into Atlanta. They are poor, uneducated Whites. The description of both the train ride and what they experienced in Atlanta is magnificent. The two get lost in the black part of town. They are frightened and so are we. Heart-pounding. we watch as the grandfather, in a horrible manner, lets the grandson down. Despair is drawn in the “artificial nigger” statue of the story, the statue of the title, and in the lives of both Blacks and Whites. It is in this story that O’Connor grabs and holds the reader best, emotionally pulling the reader in. Morals, ethics and religion can do overlap well in this story. There is an emotional pull in this story that is missing in the others and, for once, there is a positive element to the story. Taking the trip into town brought about something good. They were now both happy to live where they did.

Thank goodness I did not give up on the stories too soon! Now, for the first time, I look forward to the stories that lie ahead.

A CIRCLE IN THE FIRE
(With distance from the story, I am willing to give it 3 stars.)
Three teenage boys visit Mrs. Cope, her daughter and Mrs. Pritchard, who works for her. One of the boys had lived there as a child. The atmosphere is dark and threatening. The boys are in control; the women cannot make them leave. Mrs. Pritchard regales in calamitous stories. Mrs. Cope copes by stressing all one has to be thankful for. The boys start a fire and the reader understands that the house and property will burn. The tragedy of the story is that despite Mrs. Cope thankful words, we know she knows that her situation is dire. This is made evident in the description of how Mrs. Cope holds her body as the tale nears its end. Her very survival is dependent on the mercy of the three boys. There is not one chance in a hundred that the boys will show mercy. Mrs. Pritchard’s calamitous stories are the reality of these women’s lives. The tone of the story is menacing and frightening. The strength of the story lies in its depiction of life in the South. As in all of the stories, I struggled with the author’s unclear use of pronouns.

A LATE ENCOUNTER WITH THE ENEMY
(2 stars)
A 62-year-old granddaughter and her 104-year-old grandfather are together at the granddaughter’s graduation ceremony. She is to finally get a graduation diploma. The grandfather is up on the stage in a wheel chair in his general’s uniform. His age has made him both mentally and physically disabled. The story is a mix of sad and funny—mostly sad in its depiction of an elderly person’s physical decrepitude and loss of sanity. He dies up on the stage. The story may be accurate in its depiction, but certainly not pleasant. O’Connor focuses only on difficult situations. The delusional old man’s cracks about women may perhaps bring a smile to your face. The humor is not to my taste. At least the story was not as long and drawn out as the others.

GOOD COUNTRY PEOPLE
(1 star)
Good country people are NOT “good country people” is the moral of this story. A so-called bible salesman seduces a thirty -two-year-old, unloved spinster daughter with an artificial leg and no prospects for marriage. “That is life” and “Nothing is perfect” are the words said to convince one’s self that life without happiness, a life filled with degradation and loneliness, without human dignity or goodness, is not so bad. This story draws the worst in man to an extreme. The story is way too long, as so many of the others have been.


THE DISPLACED PERSON
(1 star)
The displaced person in this story is a Pole. He has survived life in a concentration camp. He is diligent and hard working. This is why Blacks and the poor White despise him. At the end, the Blacks, the white workers and the farm owner let a tractor run over the displaced person, allowing him to be killed!! He has disturbed life’s equilibrium. The employees leave, the woman becomes sick and the priest is the only one who visits. The message? Foreigners are never liked because they are different. The story is depressing and too long.


A free online link is found at Gutenberg: http://www.boyd.k12.ky.us/userfiles/4...

[Jenn(ifer) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A review in song form (thank you Sufjan): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcrHE...

*****

The short story is quickly becoming my favorite fiction genre (unlike Jason here who “just [doesn’t] have time for [them] anymore"). Well, I hope everyone makes the time to read this collection, because every bit of it is outstanding. While her first shot at writing a novel was a bit sloppy, you’ll find that with short stories she is a master of her craft.

The title story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” is not at all what I expected. A family sets out for a vacation to Florida. Simple enough premise, right? Add a paranoid grandmother fearful of a mysterious murderer called The Misfit who is ‘on the loose’ and things just got a little more interesting. The story touches on themes of good vs. evil, religion, socioeconomic status, family dynamics.. and that’s just one story!

My favorite story in the collection is “Good Country People.” In this story, a self-righteous woman who happens to have an artificial leg meets a man whom she thinks is a simple bible salesman (salt of the earth!). She follows him to a barn, and they begin to do what two young people alone in a barn do… make out. This goes on for awhile and he asks her to tell him she loves him, to which she replies “(Love is) not a word I use. I don't have illusions. I'm one of those people who see through to nothing.” Shed ep ya condescending spinster! In the end we discover that people are not what they seem; even good country folks. Even good Christian boys.

In O’Connor’s stories, often what we find when we scratch the surface of the characters is not goodness, it is grotesque. Regarding her emphasis of the grotesque, O'Connor said: "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic." Her characters are often depicted as dirty, disfigured, morally bankrupt, uneducated and ignorant. In other words, they’re real.

In closing, if you haven’t read this collection, read it. If you have, read it again (even you Jason).

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

How jaded must one be to write, “...but she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder” of a woman sat by the side of a road. These are stories of people who are forced by adversity to inhabit a world where they do their best within their world which may seem outrageous to those outside it.

It’s a world where grandmas seek to save their own skin over the rest of the family, where mothers bribe men to marry their disabled daughters, children of negligent parents wonder down to rivers alone. The title, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ proves true. There are no good men (or women) to be found in these covers.

One of the recurring themes is how when times are tough, when you have little to show for the logs hours of physical labour it is easy to blame’ the other’ for your poverty. To look at those different and blame them for taking a piece out of your share of the pie rather than asking why the pie is so damned small in the first place. So we have a rural grandfather and grandson taking a trip into the city and being disconcerted by the black community, particularly one man whose well-dressed family puts the grandfather to shame and from shame comes fear and dislike. In another story Polish refugee makes the other workers on the farm so uncomfortable and in fear for their jobs the black and white workers join forces to force him to leave.

The writing is without sympathy, arguably without empathy. They are spartan tales of mean lives. Ugliness of spirit reigns and even the striking sentences are those that are grotesque, for example,
“Behind, in the distance, the city rose like a cluster of warts on the side of the mountain.”
Don’t read this expecting noble hard-working characters or ‘Good Country Folk’, as one chapter is anomalously titled, or even evocative descriptions of the great American outdoors (see previous quote). This book is the epitome of Ovid’s quote, “Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.” To be read with a side order of relieved sigh.

[Annetius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Απίθανα φρέσκα διηγήματα, γαργαλιστικά τρομακτικά μέσα στην απλότητά τους, με φόντο τον αμερικανικό νότο, αλλά στη θέση του βάζεις ό,τι θες.

Είναι σαν να περπατάς ανέμελος, μέσα στην ψευδαίσθηση ότι όλα εν σοφία είναι πλασμένα και τρία πουλάκια κάθονταν και ξαφνικά στουκάρεις με δύναμη πάνω στην αληθινή, σκάρτη ζωή. Είναι σαν να ζουμάρεις στις διάφορες μικροσκοπικές τοσοδούλικες ποταπές πραγματικότητες του κάθε τετραγωνικού εκατοστού της γης, για να δεις ότι όλα είναι σκατά -εν μέρει τουλάχιστον σίγουρα- και κούνια που σε κούναγε. Υπάρχουν και καλοί άνθρωποι πάντως. Το πιστεύεις στ’αλήθεια; Ας πρόσεχες.