Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories
I just stumbled on a copy of O’Connor’s complete short stories at a used bookstore here in Nashville and listed it in the Rabbit Room store. Years ago a friend bought me this same edition and I read it with a sense of creepy amazement; it was like nothing I’d ever read. I knew Chris Slaten was a big fan of her work so I asked him to write a recommendation for the book. We only have one copy, so if you click here and can’t find it, someone beat you to the punch.
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This collection is essential to both long time fans and first time readers interested in the work of Flannery O’Connor. My first time to read a handful of her short stories I was helpless to interpret them. One would expect that reading the 1950’s work of a female “Christ-centered” southern fiction writer would be a simple, modest or at least predictable experience. However, while on the surface her material seems similar to other popular characterizations of the South (it is populated with racists, radicals, preachers, proper manners, crooked salesmen, farm animals, old money, haunting landscapes, gaudy outfits, cultural backwoods religion that borders on superstition, a wide variety of physical disabilities etc.) and while she writes in plain, though colloquial, English, the stories and her manner of telling them depict a strange, beautiful, comical and disturbing world all her own.
As with any good works of literature, the further I have read into her unique and surreal tales the more I have seen that they are the stories of everyone’s spiritual and physical deformities, including my own. While her work is humbling and full of supernatural grace, I would be amiss not to say that it is incredibly entertaining as well.
Published after she died young from lupus, The Complete Stories spans her entire short but prolific literary career, including the first complete short stories she ever wrote (and supposedly would have preferred not to have been published) all the way to her last piece “Judgment Day.” Over time I have come to learn that the best way to understand and enjoy her stories is to read more of them. This collection provides the perfect opportunity.
-Chris Slaten
singer, songwriter
www.myspace.com/chrisslaten
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Great, great choice. I’m a huge fan and have been since Southern Lit. in college. Right now I live just down the road from her home/museum. Her stories are full of the ugly, the deformed and the profane, which makes grace stand out all the more in stark contrast.
From this collection I recommend “The River.” It still haunts my dreams.
I’ve been a silent blogreader here for a long time but just had to comment on this post because I was so excited about it! I first read Flannery O’Connor as a college freshman emerging from the the land of Christian romance/thriller novels (ah, Janette Oke, bless her soul). I can still remember the first time I read “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” I put the book down and thought to myself, “That is a perfect story.” I devoured this collection, and I still consider O’Connor a personal role model as a woman, a Christian, and a writer.
Apart from “Good Man,” I’d say that “Revelation” is my favorite. Read this immediately, people. Run, don’t walk. (Mystery and Manners is a good follow-up and a must-read for anyone trying to figure out their place as a Christian and as a writer without being a “Christian writer.”)
Thanks for offering this one. I’ve read a number of her stories but am excited to have the whole collection.
Does anybody have any favorite Flannery O’Conner quotes or moments you’d like to share?
Oh! This is the post I’ve been WAITING for. Flannery O Connor. Amazing. I havent even read it yet, but I had to comment. Such an incredible writer.
I would just like to add that not less than once I’ve felt like one of her characters when being totally overwhelmed by a big city. I was totally flumbustered in Cincy just a few weeks ago just trying to find a place to park, and I had to think of one of Ms OConnor’s country characters going to the city and getting plum hum-doogled. I can’t recommend her work enough.
She once stated that most writers wrote as if God weren’t important. She said she wanted to write such that he was important, very important. And she does. I cant put a finger on favorites because all her stories just knock me off my feet, but I would mention “The Displaced Person” and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” and “Good Country People” Thats a crazy story.
I just found the full text - I think - of Artificial Nigger if anyone has never read. This one is pretty good, if you can get past the somewhat reprehensible title.
http://www.nonplatonic.com/wasabiroot/02.11.07/an.html
Flannery O’Connor… gosh.
Ah, Mr. Slaten thank you my friend. I was reminded of O’Connor just the other day when some nice ladies came by the house and tried in a courtoeus manner to convert me to Jehovah’s Witness. The Bible salesman in “Good Country People” came to mind. I kept thinking about his fancy valise. Thanks again Chris.
“i believe i have injured an organ.”
- a good man is hard to find -
thanks for the nod to ms. o’connor, chris. great, weird stuff.
too many good things to read!! not enough time!! i’m going to have to quit my job just to be able to read all that i want.
Just don’t lose your glasses.
“It’s not fair! There was TIME now!”
“I’ll tell you another thing, Hulga…you ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born!” – A deceitful Bible salesman to a nihilist with a PhD. Stated as the salesman steals her…well, you kind of just have to read it (from Good Country People).
Thanks for this. I was an English major at Georgia College in Milledgeville, GA (where O’Connor majored in sociology) and had the pleasure of taking an entire course dedicated to her work. My favorite story is “The Displaced Person” - in part because of the following description of the priest’s encounter with the peacocks:
The priest let his eyes wander toward the birds. They had reached the middle of the lawn. The cock stopped suddenly and curving his neck backwards, he raised his tail and spread it with a shimmering timbrous noise. Tiers of small pregnant suns floated in a green-gold haze over his head. The priest stood transfixed, his jaw slack. Mrs. McIntyre wondered where she had ever seen such an idiotic old man. “Christ will come like that!” he said in a loud gay voice and wiped his hand over his mouth and stood there, gaping.
Mrs. McIntyre’s face assumed a set puritanical expression and she reddened. Christ in the conversation embarrassed her the way sex had her mother. . .
O’Connor raised peacocks at her family farm, Andalusia. I’ve heard that some descendents of her birds are at a monastary in Conyers, GA. Seems appropriate.
Three favorite, non-short story O’Connor quotes:
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”
“There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
“Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.”
I recommend “The Habit of Being,” a (huge) collection of O’Connor’s letters, for anyone trying to figure out what was in O’Connor’s head when she wrote a lot of these weird, weird stories. Her letters are chock full of wisdom as well as insight into so many of her characters and plots. It’s also enjoyable to read about her frustration with academics who just didn’t quite get what she was saying. (Particularly keen is her frustration with those who thought that the voice Tarwater hears in his head in “The Violent Bear It Away” is ‘the voice of reason.’ She was appalled that modern society no longer recognized the devil.)
My copy of “The Habit of Being” has bookmarks tucked in all over it to highlight excellent quotes because I can’t bring myself to take a highlighter to the book. But if you’re not as OCD about such things, definitely bring a highlighter.
My favorite quote is from a letter to Louise Abbot, dated somewhere around October 10, 1959. I used a portion of this quote in a comment here a couple weeks ago.
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“I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child’s faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do.
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.
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Also . . . yes, I agree with Christina. “Revelation” is a fantastic story. I always thought it amusing that Mrs. Turpin got whacked in the head by a book called “Human Development.”
I was looking for another favorite quote, and it turns out it’s in the same letter as I mentioned above:
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“[R]emember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself.”
This is the first time I’ve ventured into the “Store” part of The Rabbit Room, just out of curiosity, because I already have (several?) copies of everything O’Connor wrote. And there in the store I see Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” and “The Pacific,” by Mark Helprin.
I really like you guys.
If I had a couple of days, I would try to describe what Flannery O’Connor has meant to me. Since I don’t, I’ll just say that–quite apart from the spiritual significance of her work, which others have touched on–reading her stories made me understand the literary power that inheres in my native tongue (not just English, but the variety of English spoken in Middle Georgia, where both Flannery O’Connor and I grew up). There are turns of phrase in O’Connor that I’ve heard all my life but never would have dreamed of seeing in print (I’ve had the same experience with Uncle Remus–Joel Chandler Harris grew up one county over from O’Connor). I don’t make any special claims for Middle Georgia English; but the fact that some of the best short stories ever written happen to have been written in my native dialect has meant a lot to me as a writer, and has given me some confidence that I didn’t have to earn.
I don’t have much patience for “local color”…Flannery O’Connor’s regionalism (if you can call it that) really is the opposite of local color in that it gives depth and dimension to characters rather than flattening them out and making them alien.
Jonathan, I’m reminded of the opening to “Huckleberry Finn,” in which Twain says that there are several different regional dialects present in the book, but to my ear (eye?) they’re all the same. However, I’m sure for someone in Missouri (Missoura?) and points south, they can pick ‘em out.
Because of O’Connor, I end most of my letters with “Cheers” or “Regards.”
Regards,
Drew
[...] Rabbit Room posts, I came across this Flannery O’Connor quote in the comments section of a post about one of her books that reminded me of one of my posts from a while back, Weak and full of holes, where I quoted some [...]
I’ve been a huge fan of O’Connor since being introduced to her in college, when I took a quarter-long course in her writing at UC Berkeley. All these years later, her Complete Stories is one of my all time favorite books. Her stories have a way of disturbing my conventional notions of good and bad; my assumptions are never quite safe with her. Characters behave on levels of depravity that are uncomfortable to witness, sort of like looking in a mirror with a little too much magnification….Not for the faint of heart, but worth every second of reading!
I read “The Violent Bear it Away”. I am an avid literature reader but I just don’t get this book. What are your thoughts?
After reading Flannery O’Connor my prayers changed somewhat; now they say “Please, Lord, don’t let me be the kind of man that Flannery O’Connor can skewer!”
I had the privilege of visiting Flannery O’Connor’s homestead in Milledgeville, Georgia a few weeks ago. It is an absolute must for O’Connor fans; I will be going back this fall to read “The Lame Shall Enter First” yet again on a rocking chair on her front porch, a powerful story that has never been more relevant.
I wrote some of my thoughts about the visit over at Wonders in the Dark (excuse the formatting): http://bit.ly/9XO2YS