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wsmythe19's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
book_concierge's review against another edition
3.0
Book on CD performed by by Bronson Pinchot, Karen White, Mark Bramhall, and Lorna Raver.
3.5***
I’ve been meaning to read O’Connor for quite some time, and a challenge to read a book published the year I was fifteen, led me to this collection of short stories published posthumously, after O’Connor died at age 39 from complications of lupus.
I like Southern literature, and particularly Southern Gothic literature. The dark themes explored in such works intrigue and interest me. O’Connor excelled at this.
She gives us characters with flaws (both obvious and slightly hidden) and forces them to interact with others frequently against a backdrop of racial tension. (In this collection, the title story Everything that Rises Must Converge and the final one Judgment Day focus on the changing perceptions in 1950s-1960s America.) O’Connor also frequently includes religion, and her characters sometimes show a change in their religious adherence. While her characters may be blind to their (and others’) faults, the reader has a clear view.
There are occasional bits of … well, not exactly “humor” but lighter observations which lessen the tension and give the reader a short break from the frequently bleak story.
The audiobook features a quartet of talented voice artists. Unfortunately, I cannot clearly tell which person narrated which story, other than the men taking on those stories that primarily featured a male point of view; while the women voiced the tales with a female point of view.
3.5***
I’ve been meaning to read O’Connor for quite some time, and a challenge to read a book published the year I was fifteen, led me to this collection of short stories published posthumously, after O’Connor died at age 39 from complications of lupus.
I like Southern literature, and particularly Southern Gothic literature. The dark themes explored in such works intrigue and interest me. O’Connor excelled at this.
She gives us characters with flaws (both obvious and slightly hidden) and forces them to interact with others frequently against a backdrop of racial tension. (In this collection, the title story Everything that Rises Must Converge and the final one Judgment Day focus on the changing perceptions in 1950s-1960s America.) O’Connor also frequently includes religion, and her characters sometimes show a change in their religious adherence. While her characters may be blind to their (and others’) faults, the reader has a clear view.
There are occasional bits of … well, not exactly “humor” but lighter observations which lessen the tension and give the reader a short break from the frequently bleak story.
The audiobook features a quartet of talented voice artists. Unfortunately, I cannot clearly tell which person narrated which story, other than the men taking on those stories that primarily featured a male point of view; while the women voiced the tales with a female point of view.
nicholascap's review
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
4.0
Lots of racist people lots of brutal death
cameron_g's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
ndizz87's review against another edition
4.0
I had previously read from Flannery O’Connor’s short stories in anthologies in classes, but I had never taken the time to sit down and read an entire story collection. During this COVID-19 Pandemic, I was looking for something I already owned to read. I came across the title, which is amazing in and of itself, and decided to dive in. I had previously tried, and failed to read Wise Blood, but feel now that I couldn’t really appreciate it without having read her short stories in this collection. I’m not a person who gravitates toward short story collections. I prefer a longer story in order to create connections with characters and plot. However, I will indulge in a collection when the author is as strong as Flannery O’Connor and they primarily write in this format. I was not disappointed with what I found in this collection.
Everything that Rises Must Converge might as well have been called What Terrible Shit Will Befall This Disgruntled Character. Basically, what I found from all the stories is that there is an under current of a very twisted author. She likes to make you really empathize and sympathize with these tragic characters and the sordid tales of their lives and then, on the very last page, do something horrible to them (mostly involving them dying). I thought after the first few stories I’d get tired of it, and I really didn’t. She makes each story so distinct that it doesn’t really become a tired trope for a really long time.
Each story, again, is distinct so I’ll talk briefly about what I liked about all of them. First up is the namesake of the novel, “Everything that Rises Must Converge”. Honestly, it’s a strong story about a son accompanying his mother to the Y via the bus against a very racialized backdrop. In the end, the mother who is a racist, gets knocked down and dies from a black woman’s punch and her son really doesn’t like her very much. It was an interesting story and I see why it’s used because of the historical references to people’s views of racial identity, but I will say it wasn’t the strongest of all the stories.
“Greenleaf”, I think, is a much stronger story, but you can’t really call your short story collection and probably one of my favorites. In it, a woman who has a farm degrades her ‘lazy’ black farmer worker she’s had forever and in her mind, she’s the only thing keeping his head above water. It was a very good representation of white privilege and at the very end, the bull that has been loose, gores her to death.
In “A View of the Woods'' was another standout short story about the difference between the generations as well as progress vs. the way it’s always been. A grandfather who thinks of one of his granddaughters as cut from the same cloth (definitely not anyone else in the family) wants to sell off more of his property in order to keep the wheels of progress in motion with gas stations and restaurants and the like. His family is against it, other than his granddaughter, who he loves and takes with him everywhere. She becomes irate when she finds out he’s trying to sell a piece of property where they can see the woods from their house. She goes into a rage and assaults her grandfather for selling the piece of land and he eventually dies.
“The Enduring Chill” is okay, but definitely extremely gothic with the main character thinking he’s getting ready to die and goes home to, what he perceives, is his overbearing mother. Long story short, he was right.
“The Comforts of Home'' was another very strong entry where a woman who takes pity on a nymphomaniac (which was probably very taboo at the time) and brings her home where her adult son lives (which is a large theme throughout most of the stories - mom and son living together). The son hates that she’s there and tries to get her out. Long story short, he accidentally shoots his mother. There is a lot of religious significance throughout the story about how his religious mother tries to help a sinner recover, to the skepticism of her son who ends up accidentally killing her. There’s definitely a lot to unpack there and it was a welcome repreive from the heavy racial discrimination and the use of the N-word.
To me, “The Lame Shall Enter First” was the last of the very strong short stories and is also without the heavy use of the N-word and racial discrimination. A man who wants to do right, but is an atheist, attempts to help a delinquent teenager who believes he’s got Satan in him. While trying to help this lame-legged, demonically possessed child, he also disregards his own son for very superficial reasons. He’ll blindly look over the criminal trespassings on the teenager, but can’t stand some very superficial things about his son. Long story short, he doesn’t help the teenager, and his son dies by falling out a window.
In all honesty, I don’t know whether I began reading too fast, or it’s true, but the rest of the stories were definitely not as strong as the first. “Revelation”, “Parker’s Back”, and “Judgement Day” all kind of ran together in a blur. “Revelation” was about a woman who gets assaulted in a doctor’s office and doesn’t die (good for her!). “Parker’s Back” was about a guy who’s dedicated to tattoos and marries a very Christian woman who hates them. He finally gets one of Jesus, and she’s still disappointed. And then “Judgement Day” is something I think I was so over after the previous two that I sped through.
Long story short, my redone title stands, and O’Connor is a master of late Southern Gothic with an emphasis on racism and religion. It’s a very strong collection, overall and she’s someone that I will seriously consider reading more from. She’s made me interested in other short story collections by writers and I do want to read A Good Man is Hard to Find. If this collection I’m reviewing is ten years later, I will be interested to see her earlier work.
Everything that Rises Must Converge might as well have been called What Terrible Shit Will Befall This Disgruntled Character. Basically, what I found from all the stories is that there is an under current of a very twisted author. She likes to make you really empathize and sympathize with these tragic characters and the sordid tales of their lives and then, on the very last page, do something horrible to them (mostly involving them dying). I thought after the first few stories I’d get tired of it, and I really didn’t. She makes each story so distinct that it doesn’t really become a tired trope for a really long time.
Each story, again, is distinct so I’ll talk briefly about what I liked about all of them. First up is the namesake of the novel, “Everything that Rises Must Converge”. Honestly, it’s a strong story about a son accompanying his mother to the Y via the bus against a very racialized backdrop. In the end, the mother who is a racist, gets knocked down and dies from a black woman’s punch and her son really doesn’t like her very much. It was an interesting story and I see why it’s used because of the historical references to people’s views of racial identity, but I will say it wasn’t the strongest of all the stories.
“Greenleaf”, I think, is a much stronger story, but you can’t really call your short story collection and probably one of my favorites. In it, a woman who has a farm degrades her ‘lazy’ black farmer worker she’s had forever and in her mind, she’s the only thing keeping his head above water. It was a very good representation of white privilege and at the very end, the bull that has been loose, gores her to death.
In “A View of the Woods'' was another standout short story about the difference between the generations as well as progress vs. the way it’s always been. A grandfather who thinks of one of his granddaughters as cut from the same cloth (definitely not anyone else in the family) wants to sell off more of his property in order to keep the wheels of progress in motion with gas stations and restaurants and the like. His family is against it, other than his granddaughter, who he loves and takes with him everywhere. She becomes irate when she finds out he’s trying to sell a piece of property where they can see the woods from their house. She goes into a rage and assaults her grandfather for selling the piece of land and he eventually dies.
“The Enduring Chill” is okay, but definitely extremely gothic with the main character thinking he’s getting ready to die and goes home to, what he perceives, is his overbearing mother. Long story short, he was right.
“The Comforts of Home'' was another very strong entry where a woman who takes pity on a nymphomaniac (which was probably very taboo at the time) and brings her home where her adult son lives (which is a large theme throughout most of the stories - mom and son living together). The son hates that she’s there and tries to get her out. Long story short, he accidentally shoots his mother. There is a lot of religious significance throughout the story about how his religious mother tries to help a sinner recover, to the skepticism of her son who ends up accidentally killing her. There’s definitely a lot to unpack there and it was a welcome repreive from the heavy racial discrimination and the use of the N-word.
To me, “The Lame Shall Enter First” was the last of the very strong short stories and is also without the heavy use of the N-word and racial discrimination. A man who wants to do right, but is an atheist, attempts to help a delinquent teenager who believes he’s got Satan in him. While trying to help this lame-legged, demonically possessed child, he also disregards his own son for very superficial reasons. He’ll blindly look over the criminal trespassings on the teenager, but can’t stand some very superficial things about his son. Long story short, he doesn’t help the teenager, and his son dies by falling out a window.
In all honesty, I don’t know whether I began reading too fast, or it’s true, but the rest of the stories were definitely not as strong as the first. “Revelation”, “Parker’s Back”, and “Judgement Day” all kind of ran together in a blur. “Revelation” was about a woman who gets assaulted in a doctor’s office and doesn’t die (good for her!). “Parker’s Back” was about a guy who’s dedicated to tattoos and marries a very Christian woman who hates them. He finally gets one of Jesus, and she’s still disappointed. And then “Judgement Day” is something I think I was so over after the previous two that I sped through.
Long story short, my redone title stands, and O’Connor is a master of late Southern Gothic with an emphasis on racism and religion. It’s a very strong collection, overall and she’s someone that I will seriously consider reading more from. She’s made me interested in other short story collections by writers and I do want to read A Good Man is Hard to Find. If this collection I’m reviewing is ten years later, I will be interested to see her earlier work.
raulbime's review
4.0
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.
garyjw's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0