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A review by greg_talbot
Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories by Flannery O'Connor
4.0
“To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.”
― Flannery O'Connor
Reading a O’Connor story, i’m amazed by just how much I can be shocked. There’s the language, the depravity of character plumbed, the exploration of sensitive social topics and generally an ending that swoops in as if some bolt of lightning to give a larger context to this snippet of southern life. Her writing is courageously bleak and curiously graceful. These stories are largely about parent-child relationships fraught, dysfunctional, but not without grace.
In the title story “Everything that Arises Must Converge” a bus ride shared by a mother and son illustrates the ways in which they reckon with a family history that benefited from slavery and the ways in which they attempt to transcend this ignoble history. The son Julian blisteringly chides his mother “you needn’t act as if the world had come to an end, because it hasn’t. From now on you’ve got to live in a new world and face a few realities for a change. Buck up, it won’t kill you” (p.22). Savage bleak worldviews replacement warm familial coziness. Squaring their lineage with a love is tested in O’Connor’s typical steely style.
More than any other story here “Revelation” the story of Mrs. Turnpin in a hospital’s waiting room provoked the strongest response in me. A decent woman by her own measure, church-going, versed in hymns, is violently assaulted by a young less privileged woman. Trying to make sense of the assault, her assailant says “go back to hell where you came from, you old warthog” (p.207). Leaving her shaken, she wonders about the sanity of the girl, and the sanity of the world. Speaking out to God that he deliver her some deeper understanding of the world. Back on her farm, in silence, has a vision across the crimson sky, and a possible reveal to a deeper truth.
Other stories “Greenleaf”, “The Enduring Chill” and “Mr. Parker” also were very thought provoking. Some I was less taken with, such as the drawn out “The Comforts of Home” or the seething provocative “Judgement Day”.
Overall, I was fascinated by O’Connor as a writer. It’s always interesting to come across a writer with a command of the language that is singular to her. No one would mistake an O’Connor story for anyone else’s. Her themes of grace in a sinful world, the reckoning of privilleged and the dispossessed, and the difficult mom/son relationships were subtly infused. Her writing warrants much further and insightful readings than my 1-2 reads per story, but i’m also thankful that their craftmansship has had her stories reeling in my head for days.
― Flannery O'Connor
Reading a O’Connor story, i’m amazed by just how much I can be shocked. There’s the language, the depravity of character plumbed, the exploration of sensitive social topics and generally an ending that swoops in as if some bolt of lightning to give a larger context to this snippet of southern life. Her writing is courageously bleak and curiously graceful. These stories are largely about parent-child relationships fraught, dysfunctional, but not without grace.
In the title story “Everything that Arises Must Converge” a bus ride shared by a mother and son illustrates the ways in which they reckon with a family history that benefited from slavery and the ways in which they attempt to transcend this ignoble history. The son Julian blisteringly chides his mother “you needn’t act as if the world had come to an end, because it hasn’t. From now on you’ve got to live in a new world and face a few realities for a change. Buck up, it won’t kill you” (p.22). Savage bleak worldviews replacement warm familial coziness. Squaring their lineage with a love is tested in O’Connor’s typical steely style.
More than any other story here “Revelation” the story of Mrs. Turnpin in a hospital’s waiting room provoked the strongest response in me. A decent woman by her own measure, church-going, versed in hymns, is violently assaulted by a young less privileged woman. Trying to make sense of the assault, her assailant says “go back to hell where you came from, you old warthog” (p.207). Leaving her shaken, she wonders about the sanity of the girl, and the sanity of the world. Speaking out to God that he deliver her some deeper understanding of the world. Back on her farm, in silence, has a vision across the crimson sky, and a possible reveal to a deeper truth.
Other stories “Greenleaf”, “The Enduring Chill” and “Mr. Parker” also were very thought provoking. Some I was less taken with, such as the drawn out “The Comforts of Home” or the seething provocative “Judgement Day”.
Overall, I was fascinated by O’Connor as a writer. It’s always interesting to come across a writer with a command of the language that is singular to her. No one would mistake an O’Connor story for anyone else’s. Her themes of grace in a sinful world, the reckoning of privilleged and the dispossessed, and the difficult mom/son relationships were subtly infused. Her writing warrants much further and insightful readings than my 1-2 reads per story, but i’m also thankful that their craftmansship has had her stories reeling in my head for days.