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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
At the age of 5, Flannery O'Connor had taught her chicken to walk backwards, such a sight was this (and one can only imagine) that O'Connor and her chicken made it on the news and she once said that everything from there was anticlimactic. When I read about this, I surprisingly wasn't shocked, having read her stories, a young O'Connor teaching a chicken to walk backwards wasn't strange or fantastic because I had seen her work, when I read it, it felt very typical of Flannery O'Connor.
O'Connor is a genius. This book is quite the showing of elaborate craft. With each story, O'Connor delves into life, unsympathizing, with quite the bunch of flawed characters in each story.
Having been born and raised in Georgia, USA, pre-Civil Rights movement, it's not a surprise how much race and prejudice are factors in her stories. What surprised me is that the black characters in her stories aren't explored as the white characters, and they hardly speak unless forced to, let alone do we know of their thoughts and fears like the white characters. Flannery O'Connor once said about black souls, that "I can only see them from the outside. I wouldn't have the courage... to go inside their heads". Which explains why the black characters in her stories are only observed.
About every white character is racist and prejudiced. For instance in the story "Revelation", the main character Mrs Ruby Turpin believes herself in a better position because she is Christian, white and not poor white trash. A religious conflict stirring within her when she takes it as a message from God, a violent girl hurls a book at her and chocks and tells her, " Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog" instead of a " white trash" woman seated in the same room. And in "Everything That Rises Must Converge", Julian's mother, isn't be able to get in a bus by herself because she's afraid and uncomfortable sharing a bus with black people.
Besides this, Flannery O'Connor incredibly describes strained familial relationships, (fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, sister and brother). For the most part " intellectual" sons are embittered against their mother's for their racism and ignorance like in "Greenleaf", " Everything That Rises Must Converge" and "The Enduring Chill". Fathers ignoring their children and being unable to connect with them like in "The Lame Shall Enter First".
This book, finally, is one of the best collection of short stories I have ever read. All stories are ripped of idealism, but filled with such charge that I would sometimes walk around my room while reading.
O'Connor is a genius. This book is quite the showing of elaborate craft. With each story, O'Connor delves into life, unsympathizing, with quite the bunch of flawed characters in each story.
Having been born and raised in Georgia, USA, pre-Civil Rights movement, it's not a surprise how much race and prejudice are factors in her stories. What surprised me is that the black characters in her stories aren't explored as the white characters, and they hardly speak unless forced to, let alone do we know of their thoughts and fears like the white characters. Flannery O'Connor once said about black souls, that "I can only see them from the outside. I wouldn't have the courage... to go inside their heads". Which explains why the black characters in her stories are only observed.
About every white character is racist and prejudiced. For instance in the story "Revelation", the main character Mrs Ruby Turpin believes herself in a better position because she is Christian, white and not poor white trash. A religious conflict stirring within her when she takes it as a message from God, a violent girl hurls a book at her and chocks and tells her, " Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog" instead of a " white trash" woman seated in the same room. And in "Everything That Rises Must Converge", Julian's mother, isn't be able to get in a bus by herself because she's afraid and uncomfortable sharing a bus with black people.
Besides this, Flannery O'Connor incredibly describes strained familial relationships, (fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, sister and brother). For the most part " intellectual" sons are embittered against their mother's for their racism and ignorance like in "Greenleaf", " Everything That Rises Must Converge" and "The Enduring Chill". Fathers ignoring their children and being unable to connect with them like in "The Lame Shall Enter First".
This book, finally, is one of the best collection of short stories I have ever read. All stories are ripped of idealism, but filled with such charge that I would sometimes walk around my room while reading.
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
I don't think I have ever read a more gruesome set of short stories in my life.
This is my first foray into Flannery O'Connor and I did as per the suggestion of one of those "If you enjoyed..." lists. I must that that I was not expecting a collection of stories to be so full of darkness, despair, and a meaning that feel obvious, yet eludes me. O'Connor uses the same archetypal figures in her stories: that of a male and a female, usually a grown son living with his older mother, but again, they can take any age or pair; combined with the Old South, racism, and other prejudices. I don't want to spoil anything for future readers, but the brutal endings of each of these stories has kept me reading to the very last as if I were hungry to know how each character would greet their end. This gives the reader a weird kind of omniscience that I haven't seen in a book before.
In addition, O'Connor's writing is pure and simple, evoking strong imagery of both setting and character without too much embellishment.
I find it interesting that I want to give this book the highest rating possible, as I would not normally for this text as it is a short story compilation (which I do not usually read, or like) and it is not usually my style. But, obviously, its charms and themes revolving around the "new-old-south" (old for us, newly liberated) are particularly interesting to me and I feel like I cannot give it anything else other than a 5/5. I am terrified and so excited to pick up a full length novel by Flannery O'Connor, lest it leave me even more shaken than this collection has.
This is my first foray into Flannery O'Connor and I did as per the suggestion of one of those "If you enjoyed..." lists. I must that that I was not expecting a collection of stories to be so full of darkness, despair, and a meaning that feel obvious, yet eludes me. O'Connor uses the same archetypal figures in her stories: that of a male and a female, usually a grown son living with his older mother, but again, they can take any age or pair; combined with the Old South, racism, and other prejudices. I don't want to spoil anything for future readers, but the brutal endings of each of these stories has kept me reading to the very last as if I were hungry to know how each character would greet their end. This gives the reader a weird kind of omniscience that I haven't seen in a book before.
In addition, O'Connor's writing is pure and simple, evoking strong imagery of both setting and character without too much embellishment.
I find it interesting that I want to give this book the highest rating possible, as I would not normally for this text as it is a short story compilation (which I do not usually read, or like) and it is not usually my style. But, obviously, its charms and themes revolving around the "new-old-south" (old for us, newly liberated) are particularly interesting to me and I feel like I cannot give it anything else other than a 5/5. I am terrified and so excited to pick up a full length novel by Flannery O'Connor, lest it leave me even more shaken than this collection has.
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really love a good Flannery O'Connor story, and they're all good. She has a way of hitting the hard issues in a subtle way that packs a punch. And she doesn't give any answers, she simply raises interest in the questions.