If I hadn't gotten my hands on quotes of hers where she says plainly what she thinks...
If I only had the the first short story of hers I read to go on...
I would probably not have trusted her enough to pick up another thing she wrote again.
But I kept reading, and I love the way she thinks.
Her work is full of ironies:
If there's a prim and proper character who's committed to seeing herself as upright, that person is probably in grave moral danger?
If there's someone who is clearly insane in the story, maybe that person sees something more clearly than the rest of us?
Anyone else read her stuff?
Or curious?
Enjoying Flannery O'Connor's works
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Linna Heartbooger
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Enjoying Flannery O'Connor's works
"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
They don't take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage.
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience."
-Flannery O'Connor
"In spite of much that militates against quietness there are people who still read books. They are the people who keep me going."
-Elisabeth Elliot, Preface, "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael"
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Vraith
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Way back as an undergrad, I read the "Everything That Rises..." collection
for a class [alongside Carson McCullers "Ballad..Cafe"]
I kinda liked it, definitely worth reading...but didn't quite get hold of me.
Preferred McCullers.
for a class [alongside Carson McCullers "Ballad..Cafe"]
I kinda liked it, definitely worth reading...but didn't quite get hold of me.
Preferred McCullers.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Linna Heartbooger
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I looked up stuff about Carson McCullers, and I can totally see why they would have been discussed in the same context. (Place, time and a lot of overtly similar things showing up.)
I think there are a lot of things in O'Connor that I just wouldn't have seen as being there until recently.
I'd just be like, "Wow, so there's this violent disturbing person, and something terrible happens."
Of course, actual lit classes would definitely do better than that.
OTOH, O'Connor frequently lamented perfectly well-educated peoples' inability to "get" her writing. (There are some funny comments in her letters.)
I think there are a lot of things in O'Connor that I just wouldn't have seen as being there until recently.
I'd just be like, "Wow, so there's this violent disturbing person, and something terrible happens."
Of course, actual lit classes would definitely do better than that.
OTOH, O'Connor frequently lamented perfectly well-educated peoples' inability to "get" her writing. (There are some funny comments in her letters.)
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[Syl]
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"It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
-George Steiner
-George Steiner
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Vraith
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<<----Heh...ya gotta love good snark. [maybe I ain't got it yet...but I aspire.][Syl] wrote:Flannery O'Connor on Ayn Rand
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Linna Heartbooger
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Thank you, for bringing up Flannery O'Connor's snark, Syl![Syl] wrote:Flannery O'Connor on Ayn Rand
(Only saw yer post weeks after you wrote it.. oops.)
I enjoy her comments dissin' notable movers-and-shakers and their works.
O'Connor also had a classy way of "showing up" parts of The Spirit of The Age as ridiculous. (With Ayn Rand's ideas, you have both, since Rand was a pretty influential Zeitgeist-shaper..)
But O'Connor also delighted in "showing up" inane ideas that conflict with the spirit of the present age.
Even if the only domain those inane ideas had was one dull, ordinary person's privately-held assumptions.
(Just re-read a dialog she wrote that makes a perfect example of that one.)
But there is a lot of stuff O'Connor says that you (or at least I... I speak for myself) don't get at first...
Then the irony sinks in later.
As she says herself...
Even of the few things I said earlier on this thread, I may have been "not really getting her."Flannery O'Connor, again to her friend Maryat wrote:The thing for you to do is write something with a delayed reaction like those capsules that take an hour to melt in your stomach. In this way, it could be performed in Milledgeville on Monday and not make them vomit until Wednesday, by which time they would not be sure who was to blame. This is the principle I operate under and I find it works very well.
For example, my claim that "If there's a prim and proper character who's committed to seeing herself as upright, that person is probably in grave moral danger"...
Seems that's not often the main point of what she's doing with the "prim and proper characters" in her stories.
(thank you, Miss O'Connor, for baiting me into projecting my prejudices on to you.)
Some of your snark around here is pretty good, and appreciated. Again, I speak for myself. Admittedly, there is a large corpus of vraith-snark - possibly some of your favorite stuff to generate - that I just don't see.Vraith wrote:<<----Heh...ya gotta love good snark. [maybe I ain't got it yet...but I aspire.]
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Vraith
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That's a great quote, and though I did/do prefer McC still, O'C did do that well...and I'd probably never have noticed things like that going on...for O'C or any decent writer...if I didn't have the habit of writing a draft of a paper then re-reading the work before revising. [which often meant "revising" was synonymic with "tearing it up and starting over."]Linna Heartlistener wrote:Even of the few things I said earlier on this thread, I may have been "not really getting her."Flannery O'Connor, again to her friend Maryat wrote:The thing for you to do is write something with a delayed reaction like those capsules that take an hour to melt in your stomach. In this way, it could be performed in Milledgeville on Monday and not make them vomit until Wednesday, by which time they would not be sure who was to blame. This is the principle I operate under and I find it works very well.
I probably SHOULD do that for everything I read before opining.
But that could lead to a wordish hell-hole...cuz I took up the habit cuz a teacher said "you don't really understand what you read till you re-read" and then a Prof. said "you don't really understand something till you try to teach it..."
and then I discovered no, it is the second time you teach it...then I came here and found that damn, things can change any time anyone who is not yourself says something you didn't [and perhaps COULDN't] think of.
But, criminy, you might have made it necessary for me to go read some again [or maybe some I haven't] once I'm done with Gormenghast and Malazan.
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
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Linna Heartbooger
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That's cool. I think I find this oddly encouraging.Vraith wrote:That's a great quote, and though I did/do prefer McC still, O'C did do that well...and I'd probably never have noticed things like that going on...for O'C or any decent writer...if I didn't have the habit of writing a draft of a paper then re-reading the work before revising. [which often meant "revising" was synonymic with "tearing it up and starting over."]
Also, in the realm of fiction, O'Connor herself wrote... I don't remember how many pages that she did not use, but I think the amount she wrote and re-wrote for at least one of her novels... was something like 10x what she ended up using.
But that could lead to a wordish hell-hole...cuz I took up the habit cuz a teacher said "you don't really understand what you read till you re-read" and then a Prof. said "you don't really understand something till you try to teach it..."
and then I discovered no, it is the second time you teach it...then I came here and found that damn, things can change any time anyone who is not yourself says something you didn't (and perhaps COULDN't) think of.
Well-said.