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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
Amazing American short stories which are as relevant today. Dive right in and if you feel the tension to your liking, venture onto a bigger text of her’s.
Solid Flannery, but I preferred A Good Man Is Hard to Find.
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Murder
I must admit that Flannery O'Connor has been one of those authors I have been reluctant to read. However, I read this short story and thought it was well-written. O'Connor exposes the bigoted beliefs of the son and mother. But, I thought it was very much an old-fashioned view of racism.
This is a really excellent short story collection; it's just much too dark for my tastes. O'Connor's world is not one I would like to regularly occupy. My favorite story in here "The Enduring Chill" is also easily the lightest, which I think is more telling about me than the author.
I love Flannery O'Connor, but I probably wouldn't have read this had I known it was released posthumously. I feel, personally, that it's kind of disrespectful to read something that we aren't certain if the author was satisfied with. Why weren't these published? Were they unfinished or did publishers just reject them? It feels nosy or greedy, like I'm reading their diary. There were only a couple of stories in here that felt like Flannery herself might've not wanted to share them (yet?), but of course they were wonderful anyway.
I still wish I hadn't read it though.
I still wish I hadn't read it though.
Look. It's not gonna come as a surprise to anybody that I gave this book five stars. Flannery O'Connor is my favorite writer of all time. So much so that when asked to write a book review for work, I reviewed an O'Connor biography (The Terrible Speed of Mercy by Jonathan Rogers). Even as a long-time O'Connor fan, there were stories in this collection I had yet to read. Hearing her voice with fresh ears is always nice. These stories are among her most shocking and, thusly, most graceful. Theft. Murder. Abuse. Condescension and superiority. A divine hand can be seen at work in all of it. O'Connor's vision of humanity is a painful one, but one much-needed.
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Normally, I don't like short stories. They take too long to get in to, and then they are over. You never get a chance to figure out who the characters are and what everything means. I have NEVER struggled to put down a book of short stories before. Usually, they take me weeks to read because I can't do more than 1-2 a day.
Clearly, I have been reading the wrong short stories. The stories in this book are beautifully written and compelling, full of sorrow and unexpectedly mundane despair. None of them felt truncated, probably because they all revolved around a specific theme, and therefore, you could feel the relationship between them as you turned the page. They are about the convergence of classes - racial, social, economical - but also about family. What we expect from our family and what we get are often very different things, and you see that theme echoed throughout O'Connor's stories.
This is another book whose reading was inspired and shaped by Lost. Family relations were especially on my mind as I was reading this because Jacob was reading it right before he watched Locke fall 8 stories to what should have been his death (but wasn't), all at the hands of his father. Family relationships are hugely featured on Lost, and perhaps none more so that Locke's perpetually disappointing one with his birth father.
My favorite story in this collection was "A View of the Woods", which is possible because it's the most heart-wrenching to me. All of them are great though, and I definitely would recommend this to anyone, not just fans of Lost.
Clearly, I have been reading the wrong short stories. The stories in this book are beautifully written and compelling, full of sorrow and unexpectedly mundane despair. None of them felt truncated, probably because they all revolved around a specific theme, and therefore, you could feel the relationship between them as you turned the page. They are about the convergence of classes - racial, social, economical - but also about family. What we expect from our family and what we get are often very different things, and you see that theme echoed throughout O'Connor's stories.
This is another book whose reading was inspired and shaped by Lost. Family relations were especially on my mind as I was reading this because Jacob was reading it right before he watched Locke fall 8 stories to what should have been his death (but wasn't), all at the hands of his father. Family relationships are hugely featured on Lost, and perhaps none more so that Locke's perpetually disappointing one with his birth father.
My favorite story in this collection was "A View of the Woods", which is possible because it's the most heart-wrenching to me. All of them are great though, and I definitely would recommend this to anyone, not just fans of Lost.