Irish Wisdom
Lifted from www.godspy.com Check it out.
Flannery O'Connor, in answer to a critic who said devout Catholics were "brainwashed," and lacking in the freedom necessary to be first-rate creative writers, said "there is no reason why fixed dogma should fix anything that the writer sees in the world. On the contrary, dogma is an instrument for penetrating reality. Christian dogma is about the only thing left in the world that surely guards and respects mystery." She challenged non-believers to consider the unseen reality, the eternal truths, within and beyond the visible world.
O'Connor was equally direct when addressing fellow Catholics and other believers. She criticized those who try to "tidy up reality," letting spiritual pride blind them to the realities of our fallen, broken existence. "We lost our innocence in the Fall," she said, "and our turn to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and by our slow participation in it. Sentimentality is a skipping of this process in its concrete reality and an early arrival at a mock state of innocence, which strongly suggests its opposite."
posted by Peter @ 7:21 PM
10 Comments:
Thanks for the great quote, Pete. I love her writing but have only read a lot of her short stories. I haven't yet opened Mystery and Manners, a collection of her prose. This quote made me wish to do so. Soon.
I read a few of Flannery O'Connor's short stories when I was a lot younger. I did not really care for them. But often, things I don't care when I was younger, I like a lot more when I get older. So maybe I will check them out again sometime when I have time.
Flannery, like spinach, is more palatable to me now. Not all of her work hits me, but she was the first writer I remember whose stark portrayals startled me. Growing up, I had a steady diet of Little Women, mostly pre-1900 classics, and rummage-sale cast-offs, few of which treated life's ugliness with such matter-of-fact simplicity. A short story collection included one of her stories (probably "A Good Man is Hard to Find"), and then college classes introduced a few more.
I find it hard to say why I don't care for Flannery. I just re read A Good Man is Hard to Find, and I still don't care for it. Though I understand it better than I did when I was younger and I think it is a well crafted story. When I was younger, I don't think I understood the last line in that story as I do now.
But even though I understand the story better, it still seems gimmicky to me. That what I remember (rightly or wrongly) about the other stories I have read of hers as well. All of her stories are well written, but just a touch forced for my tastes.
But it must be admitted that I am an exceptionally critical person. There are only a few fiction writers that I will confess to holding much esteem for. Furthermore, in my early teens, my reading turned mostly to non fiction so I should probably be written off as a philistine.
What fiction writers do you recommend? I'm not always the most critical reader (sometimes a boon, sometimes a bane), and I'm interested to know what authors a philistine would choose to read.
Speaking of gimmicky writers and not being the most critical reader, I suppose one could compare O. Henry's standard "surprise" endings to O'Connor's bleak endings.
(Maybe my penchant in childhood for his gimmicks has naturally led me to O'Connor. Who's to say? :)
I don't recommend authors, as almost everyone does a lot bad work. The few exceptions (J.R Tolkien and such) cheat by not writing very many books. However, even having said that, there are a surprising number of really good fiction books out there. Naming them all in one post would be kind of excessive, so I will just name three.
A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt, The Runner, also by Cynthia Voigt, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. These books are all very short. I could read all of them put together in a day easy.
There are a lot of reasons why I would recommend these three books. But probably the shortest and truest explanation would involve the impact that they have had on my own life.
For better or worse, my life from the time I learned how to read to the time that I had to start working for living (that was a black day) consisted of two things; reading and thinking. Those two things naturally go together, but at first reading and thinking caused quite a lot of conflict. Being inculcated into the cult of J.R Tolkien from an early age had led me astray in terms of reading. Since I loved that book so much I thought that all books had to have action and adventure in them to be interesting.
The problem was that the more books filled with action and adventure I read, the more dissatisfied I got. The books I was reading might (if I was lucky) amuse me while I read them. But as soon as I started thinking about them, it was like they crumbled into dust. They became absolute worthless. It got so bad that my only amusement in reading came from trying to see how precisely I could guess the plot line of books after the first few chapters. Now this might not seem like much of tragedy but for me it was the equivalent of being starving and only having crap to eat.
Then I read A Solitary Blue. That booked changed my whole view of what fiction was for and what it could accomplish. By changing my perspective Solitary Blue enabled me to go off on an odyssey through much great fiction. That odyssey lasted me up to the time that I read The Runner. It would be an understatement to say that I thought that it was good book. But paradoxically, it also all but put a stop to my fiction reading. It took the reading of another couple of good books before I realized that The Runner had taken me as far as fiction could. I kind of regressed back to 'I have seen it all' feeling I had before I read A Solitary Blue.
Thankfully, around the same time that I read The Runner I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Alexander Solzhenitsyn changed my view of history and what the study of it could do for me in much the same way Voigt changed my view of fiction. Because One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was the book that started the process it will always have a special place in my heart.
All three of these books have a couple of things in common. They are all short. They are all sad. They are all plotless. They are all considered by many people to be hopelessly sentimental. If you decided that you are intrigued enough to read them in spite of that warning, than I suggest that you not read any reviews about any of these books until after you have read the books themselves. I would also suggest that you read the A Solitary Blue before you read The Runner.
They are all short. They are all sad. They are all plotless.
Now I can't help but think of books you may like (or not)that fit these two criteria. I don't know if you'd like them, but I recommend any book by Par Lagerkvist, especially Barabbas, though they probably wouldn't be considered hopelessly sentimental. I think Godric by Frederick Beuchner is also a good book, though it's longer, and I haven't read it in a few years.
If you decided that you are intrigued enough to read them in spite of that warning, than I suggest that you not read any reviews about any of these books until after you have read the books themselves.
I am intrigued enough and will request them from the library soon! Thanks. And thanks, too, for the warning against reviews. I don't usually read reviews first, but I am notorious for reading backs of books and flipping through the middle. (John gets on me for that...)
Actually, I was not being very clear. I don't like short books as a general rule. I don't like sad books as a general rule. I don't like plotless books as a general rule. I hate hopelessly sentimental books. I was mostly voicing common criticism of those three books. I can see how people say those things about those three books, but I think they are missing most of what is there. Certainly in my own family, the older people get, the more they tend to get out of those books. Some of my siblings may never get anything out them though.
I have to give you a tip of my hat though, there are not many people who can recommend books that I not only have not read, but not even heard of before. In the case of Pär Lagerkvist, I find that particularly amazing. I will have to check them out.
Sorry if this post is not very clear as I am kind of tired.
You were as clear as a bell!
I did have fun imagining you requesting a book recommendation from a librarian..."If you can find anything short, sad, plotless, and, most importantly, hopelessly sentimental, I'd be grateful."
John deserves that tip of the hat, as he's the one who introduced me to Lagerkvist (and how did you put the dots over "Par?"). He's more widely traversed in words and works than I am and will often point me toward new books and authors. Over the last year, he's read mostly non-fiction, but he still manages to weasel out good fiction for me. (One boon of marrying a book-lover...)
I haven't been to the library yet to pick up the two you recommended, but I'm looking forward to doing so when John gets back from L. Island.
Oh, yeah.
I guess the books I recommended don't completely fit those criteria that aren't really criteria, anyway. Lagerkvist's are fairly short and some are sad. Godric isn't really short or sad, though. I don't think the plot in any of them follows a set progression, though.
Anyway, I think they're all good.
[End of babbling. Honest.]
Post a Comment
<< Home