The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor: Initial Impressions, March, 2016

[Franky]

I was noticing too that when I was reading some of the stories, saying "Hey, wait. This is Wise Blood." Never knew O'Connor's novel was originally based on a few of her short stories, but I guess that is how many writers come up with an idea for a longer work.

[Oscar]

Franky wrote: "I was noticing too that when I was reading some of the stories, saying "Hey, wait. This is Wise Blood." Never knew O'Connor's novel was originally based on a few of her short stories, but I guess t..."
Faulkner called it "beefing." He would carve a story from a longer work and sell it to a journal. Survival technique for a writer?

[Connie]

I just finished the stories in A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories. There is a strong religious element in these stories with characters looking for salvation and spirituality, but with a dark, twisted result such as in "The River". Some of the characters have ideas about making changes in their lives, but fate or God provides a totally different outcome. The title story is one of my all-time favorites.

[Franky]

I forgot about "The River." Very powerful story, but sort of a downer. I agree, Connie, with the religious aspect of O'Connor's stories.

[FrankH]

An earlier GR review I posted on 'Everything That Rises...' acknowledged her superior craft but couldn't get beyond the idea her storylines seem so bleak and unforgiving, bereft of any strong spiritual uplift, especially when read back to back over the course of say one or two days. But with 'The Artificial Nigger', 'Displaced Person' and several other stories from 'Good Man..' I'm reading now for the first time, I'm beginning to see the light. Thanks to Kaye and others for their comments on the subject of Grace, which surely must have been on O'Conner's mind while imagining these tales.

I can't get over how extraordinary some of her work is! A story begins with the most humble, prosaic elements and then somehow after a few pages, through some literary alchemy, it reaches a point of almost unbearable tension, usually operating at several levels of meaning.

[Lawyer, "Moderator Emeritus"]

Today marks what would have been Flannery O'Connor's 91st Birthday.

[Tina]

I finally got to A Good Man is Hard to Find and I really enjoyed it unlike all the stories in the book up to this point. It's definitely a story that will stick with you. I think I might need to read it again.

[Diane S ☔]

I read it twice too, Tina.

[Tom, "Big Daddy"]

That's a fascinating story that everyone who reads it seems to interpret differently.

The story that has disturbed me the most is The Displaced Person. The attitudes towards immigrants from war-torn lands seems frighteningly similar to what it is today.

[Tom, "Big Daddy"]

I'm currently reading The Partridge Festival and loving its tongue in cheek humor. Who else but Aunt Mattie (and maybe the NRA) would call the mass shooting of five dignitaries and an innocent bystander as 'an unfortunate incident' that 'mars the festive spirit' of the occasion?

[Tina]

Has anyone dissected The Circle In the Fire? Mrs. Pritchard repeatedly saying, "there ain't a thing you can do about it"?

[Diane, "Miss Scarlett"]

I don't know about the other southerners in this group, but I'm always mystified when people start talking about grotesques and weird characters outside the norm in O'Connor's fiction. They all seem perfectly in step with actual people that I know or have known in the past. The phrase "There ain't a thing you can do about it" is one example. Doesn't everyone use that? I'm not being funny here, I'm serious.

[Tina]

Diane, you can't do anything about it. That is so true. You hear many versions of this phrase every day. It is very common. I just kept wondering why the property owner didn't call the sheriff if she wanted the boys to leave.

[Doug H]

Diane wrote: "I don't know about the other southerners in this group, but I'm always mystified when people start talking about grotesques and weird characters outside the norm in O'Connor's fiction. They all see..."

We're all a little weird on the inside. And there ain't a thing you can do about it.

[Diane, "Miss Scarlett"]

I love you, Doug!

[Kim]

I think I remember Faulkner saying he did not have to invent characters, he had an abundance of eccentrics available within his family. We all have our quirks, it makes life interesting. If we were homogenous, how dull life would be.

[Tina]

Doug, are you sure you aren't Southern?

[Oscar]

Diane wrote: "I don't know about the other southerners in this group, but I'm always mystified when people start talking about grotesques and weird characters outside the norm in O'Connor's fiction. They all see..."
Harry Crews, who traveled with a carnival group for a while, said he was drawn to the freaks because they couldn't hide their abnormality as the rest of us can. He himself had a decided limp from infantile paralysis. My favorite of his books is A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, Bacon County, Georgia. It's as Southern and as honest as it gets. (Crews could sing a mean "John Henry" too and break your heart on "Swing Low Sweet Chariot.")

[Laura, "The Tall Woman"]

Oscar, I think we need to read another Harry Crews book soon. I've read his memoir and it's a favorite.