Flannery O'Conner was born in 1925, and grew up on a farm in Georgia, which is the chicken capital of the world.
"When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax."
In the '40s O'Conner escaped to New York, but in 1951 she was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Lupus and was forced to return home, where she raised peacocks and wrote all these stories. She died in 1964 at the age of 39.
Most of her stories are about pious and intolerant people who act like jerks and get what's coming to them.
In "Good Country People" Joy Hopewell (who is joyless, hopeless and unwell) has a PhD and is dismissive of everyone, especially her own mother. "Sometimes she went for walks, but she didn't like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men. She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity." And so a nice young man is her undoing.
In "Good Country People" Joy Hopewell (who is joyless, hopeless and unwell) has a PhD and is dismissive of everyone, especially her own mother. "Sometimes she went for walks, but she didn't like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men. She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity." And so a nice young man is her undoing.
O'Conner was a Catholic, but most of her characters are not Catholics, or not very good ones. They are religious hypocrites, or even worse - secular liberals. Many undergo transformations that bring them closer to a Catholic mindset. Others receive sudden and violent divine retribution.
In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" a selfish and manipulative old woman tries to convince a famous killer (The Misfit) to pray for salvation. He shoots her three times through the chest. "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" a selfish and manipulative old woman tries to convince a famous killer (The Misfit) to pray for salvation. He shoots her three times through the chest. "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
O'Conner writes in a spare, no-nonsense kind of way that I like a lot. It's from a Catholic perspective, but not preachy. The characters are always interesting (for ignorant bigots) and the whole book is chock full of irony and sardonic humour.
I was hoping for more peacocks, but other than that I thought it was brilliant.
Next month we will be reading Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees by Roger Deakin.
7 comments:
Sorry for no adding my tuppence worth.
Glad you liked it.
I did too.
Have you read any Roger Deakin?
I have not read Roger Deakin. Which one?
To be clear, and as not a slight to the book, this is a great commute book. Once I became fluent in the southern tongue of the 1940's, I could polish of a short story in one, maybe two rides.
I enjoyed the stories and the writing style and liked the continuation of characters into new situations. Even though the subject matter tended to slant to the darker side, I felt it made me reflect more on the events rather than on my mood.
Indeed, again not a factor of the book itself, the only difficulty I had was thinking about the review I would have to produce at the end. Alas, Anthony has provided the text so I can simple add my small part.
I guess I am more opinionated about beers than books
I like this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Waterlog-Swimmers-Journey-Through-ebook/dp/B0050OLFCS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330611290&sr=8-2
It made me want to take my clothes off and jump in the river.
Waterlog seems to be out of print here. And I don't want to think of you taking your clothes off. So March's book is "Wildwood A Journey Through Trees"!
Amy bought me a copy of Wildwood a year ago, but I put it on the shelf and forgot about it.
Two weeks ago I bought another copy from Waterstones with book vouchers I stole from my children. I now have two copies.
Reading it makes me want to take my clothes off and run through a forest stark naked, then lie down and cover myself in leaves and fox excrement.
Post a Comment