Flannery O’Connor is essentially the patron saint of the college where I work and the city where I live. I was a fan (though not a mega-fan) of her fiction before I came here but I’ve been amazed to discover what a cult following she has- I’d never have dreamed it was as large as it is in a nation not known for its love of literature or anything that happened before last June.
Part of my position is promoting the F O’C collection both in person and online and I’m trying to get a better understanding of her current fan-base.
For those who are major fans of her work, what draws you to her the most (e.g. southern voice? Catholicism? ear for dialect? humor? religion?)
Any feedback at all is appreciated. (This isn’t going into a scholarly study or anything like it, but is more an informal measure to understand her popularity today.)
PS- For anybody interested, here are some photos I took of her home, Andalusia, last winter.
“She would of been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”
I actually thought of that line in the “What’s the Scariest Story You’ve Ever Read” thread. That story was like “Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge” in that it messed me up (in a good way) when I first read it because I was completely wrong about where it was going.
I love Flannery. My GF bought me a collection of her shorts and I loved them.
I’m not sure what draws me to her, but I think it’s the general fucked-upness that tends to draw me to Kafka as well. But her characters are far more real.
Two of my favorites are “The River” and “The Artificial Nigger.” But they’re all great.
I have read only the book of her letters. What drew me to her was her able and lifelong defense of her faith, in words alternately colloquial, humorous, and sincere.
I asked for and received The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor for Christmas. I read some stories of hers a few years ago in English class and fell in love with her skewed sense of humor. Like hlanelee, my favorite story is “Good Country People.”
I’d have to say it was her sheer craft that first drew me; many of the stories in Everything That Rises Must Converge I was just amazed by, like “Parker’s Back” and “Revelation.” “An Encounter with the Enemy” stands out for me from Good Man. You certainly don’t go to her fiction to be soothed or comforted, and I’ve noticed I don’t read her nearly as much as when I was just out of college. At that age, there was something so bracing about her, I think, that also drew me to her.
In my humble opinion, The Violent Bear it Away doesn’t nearly get the attention it deserves. Stunning novel, just beautifully executed. And one of my favorite opening paragraphs in literature.
I love Flanery O’Conner as well. And I have to concur with the choice of “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Love that story!
I think what appeals most to me is her vivid characterization. With just a twist of a sentence, she takes me into a character’s mind and psyche in a way that few writers seem able to do.
A great story about Andalusia, btw: after Flannery’s death her mother, Regina (who outlived her by 30 years) essentially closed the home due to its memories and maintenance and spent the rest of her life in a house in the city limits. Though she was a great manager of her daughter’s literary estate (she herself wasn’t literary but she had always been, of necessity, a hardheaded business woman) she either didn’t understand the value of rough drafts or just didn’t want to go through her daughter’s effects. Many of Flannery’s original drafts, cartoons (she was a talented cartoonist) and voluminous handwritten notes and correspondence were kept in cardboard boxes in Flannery’s bedroom in the deserted house. The value of this, not just literarily but monetarily, is almost impossible to estimate, but rough estimate: many many many many thousands of dollars.
Here in M’ville, most people have no idea who she was (and then there are those who know exactly who she was but are still p.o.d because she wrote about Uncle X and Cousin Y fifty years ago). The abandoned house was broken into several times and among the items stolen were a broken radio, a few fishing poles and a gas can. The thieves stole items that could be bought brand new at any Wal-Mart for a few dollars and stepped over boxes filled with manuscripts that would bring a fortune from an archives or collector to do it. I think Flannery would love that irony.
Flannery O’Connor is among my very favorite writers of all times (some of you may remember that my sigline was a FO’C quote for a very long time). I never would have read her except David Sedaris kept on me about it, and I finally took him at his word and read her. I was hooked for life (and you can hear her influence in his work, too).
My favorite story is probably “Revelations,” but The Violent Bear It Away is among my favoritest pieces of literature ever, and I feel like it was a big influence on another favorite, Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker.
What I like about her is her spiritual passion refracted through a darkly sardonic worldview. She sees humanity’s sins and weaknesses and chides them for them affectionately. I’ve always been fascinated by religious hysterics, and of course that’s one of her favorite subjects too. I like her frequent theme of the unavoidability of spirituality, even though I myself am a die hard atheist. But I think that, as an artist, her themes of inspiration and religious hysteria echo parallels of my inner art energies, to put it uneloquently.
And she made me understand the central concept of all stories: that there is a moment when the protagonist is offered an opportunity to accept grace–to do the right thing for the right reasons–and if he accepts that offer, it’s a happy ending; rejection leads to tragedy. (Thus I realized, after reading O’Connor, that, for example, “Snow White” is really about the queen, and not about Snow White at all.)