Flannery O'Connor

I know that many of you will have some knowledge of Flannery O'Connor and on the back of this presumption, I would like some comments on where to start first with her, using the LOAs very own Collected Works volume, which to my shame I have long neglected and left redundant on my bookshelf, gathering dust.

So should I start at the start or with her stories, essays, novels?

Any input most appreciated.

Start with the stories of A Good Man Is Hard to Find. After that, I'd be inclined to go with the Everything That Rises Must Converge anthology, but if you'd like to you can swing over to the two novels, starting with the first, Wise Blood. (In fact, you might prefer doing Wise Blood second in your reading, to break up the stories a bit and then come back to the ETRMC anthology.) When you're done them, you can go over to The Violent Bear It Away .

Don't bother with the essays until the end. And as I recall, the remaining stories toward the end of the LoA are early stories that were only anthologized in the 1971 "complete" stories collection. You could leave off on them until just before the essays, or you might want to do them right before The Violent Bear It Away for the sake of short-story completion.

Thanks CurrerBell

I know many folk hold Flannery O'Connor in the highest regard from the American canon. I wonder though, bar the more dedicated reader, how is she received by the general American public?

Flannery who?

Not sure about the general American public. But my sense of her reputation (which at the moment I share for the simple fact I've not read more than a short story or two) is of an admired and influential author, someone honored by other authors and beloved of those upholding Southern culture as honorable, while absolutely not shirking from the evil of the past, and yet, not someone read regularly.

I have been an avid reader for most of my 69 years, but I had never heard of her until LOA published her. She has not been on any of the reading lists that I have seen.

I'm with those who had never heard of her until LOA published it's volume of her works. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed it and think she deserves a lot more recognition.

If you like the arcane drifting decidedly toward the weird you can benefit by trying her out. Purchase her collected works and read it from cover to cover just as it lays. Wonderfull, wonderfull stuff.

Obviously a big fan.

Safe to say that the general American public has no clue who Flannery O'Connor was.

I read her "Collected Stories" back in the 1970's and loved them. I know she was highly regarded then by the likes of Alfred Kazin. I don't know how today's critics view her now. I have read that one of her stories, "The Artificial Nigger," has run into censorship issues.

I would be interested to hear David's comments on #10 and censorship issues, specifically and more generally, and how the Library of America deals with such irritations. And of course his thoughts on Flannery O'Connor in general.

The Flannery O'Connor volume has been one of the LOA's all-time best-sellers; now in its fourteenth printing, over 110,000 copies have been sold. (It was our #3 best-selling title in both 2012 and 2013.) FSG has enjoyed even greater success with their edition of collected stories, which has been through at least 75 printings since it appeared in 1971.

Her fiction does not seem to be taught widely in high schools, where the "censorship" issues come into play. Her fiction's macabre nature, steeped in notions of Catholic redemption, would prove challenging to teach in any case. But the stories are now very often included in college courses and are ubiquitous in writing programs. You pretty much can't get an MFA today without having been submerged in O'Connor and Carver. I think her star began its rise when the collected stories posthumously received the National Book Award in 1972 and accelerated when, in 1988, she became the first author born in the twentieth century to be added to the LOA series.

Similarly, her works have appeared on any number of best-of lists: The Guardian ranked "Wise Blood" at #62 on their list of 100 all-time best novels. That novel's ranking at #38 on the readers' poll published by the Modern Library suggests that her popularity among general readers is higher than some might think. Similarly, an online poll conducted by the National Book Foundation found that 1971 story collection was the all-time favorite among the books that had won the National Book Award. (The tally apparently wasn't even close.) She was one of a handful of writers mentioned by Bruce Springsteen as having "contributed greatly to the turn my music took around 1978-82"; he in turn introduced her stories to his many fans. (His songs "The River" and "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" take their names from O'Connor's stories, and the lyrics for "Nebraska" also evoke the final line of the latter story.)

More notoriously, she was the ONLY woman included among Esquire's list of "80 Books Every Man Should Read," which led on social media to the mocking invention of the Flannery O'Connor Rule (i.e., that she is all too often the only female American author included on best-of lists compiled by men).

Among authors (especially Southern writers), her influence is also vast: Charles Portis, John Kennedy Toole, Barry Hannah, Walker Percy, Cormac McCarthy, and Joyce Carol Oates are perhaps the most obvious (virtually all of them have explicitly acknowledged her influence). But others who have listed her as their favorite author include writers as diverse as Jim Crace, Michael Cunningham, Carl Hiaasen, and Alice Walker.

I could go on with comments about her impact and popularity, but I think you get the idea. That said, I do think her influence outside the U.S. and U.K. is not as notable.

As for me: she's one of my favorite authors. I'm hard-pressed to recommend one work above others, but the stories I come back to time and again are "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and--especially--"Good Country People."

--David

There are two Library of America blog posts that might be of interest to those who've read O'Connor (and even those who haven't):

Flannery O'Connor: the writer vs. the believer
http://blog.loa.org/2010/08/flannery-oconnor-writer-vs-believer.html

And Tom Perrotta was interviewed about the importance of religion in the story "Good Country People":
http://blog.loa.org/2011/06/tom-perrotta-on-superiority-and.html

--David

Thank you David.

Yes, loved the insight on publication / award history, but also the consideration of her influence. I really do need to read her work, I'm better acquainted with Walker Percy and Raymond Carver and the links reinforce my interest.

Back in the late 1960s, when I was an undergraduate English major, I read first "The Life You Save May Be your Own," in an anthology in freshman English, then in the second semester of American Literature ("Dreiser to Updike"), read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in another anthology. These prompted me to read more, including "Good Country People" and "The Temple of the Holy Ghost." After seeing John Huston's adaptation of Wise Blood in the late 1970s, I had to read that. The fact that she was being anthologized almost 50 years ago and respected filmmakers were adapting her 35 years ago makes me think she has not been entirely invisible.

Certainly she has never been as accessible or as well-presented until the LOA volume, which was one of the first LOA books I purchased.

15

Why no LOA Walker Percy? Any in the offing?

Les Miz -- dude, you'd do better posting your question on the FUTURE VOLUMES thread (I happen to dig Percy as well). This, as noted by the header, is devoted to Flannery O'Connor.

18

Thanks Dude :-)

Just finished Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor.

Thoroughly enjoyed this. At the close of the story, I felt that I had understood it on one level and yet it required a future read or some kind of analysis of the issues within.

Very pleased to have finished my first O'Connor novel. :-)

You guys have convinced me to add O'Connor to my list of volumes to order.

>21 Dr_Flanders:

I think that is a good idea :-)

Don't neglect her two novels. Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away. She's also, for my money, the greatest American short story writer since Henry James. Her stories are absolutely bizarre.

>23 geneg:

See >20 LesMiserables:

Will have to read the latter too.

Because of this thread, I went ahead and ordered the Flannery O'Connor volume. Hearing what you people had to say about her work, and living in the somewhat south (southeastern Kentucky), I am looking forward to reading her stories and novels.