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A review by mahtiel
Collected Works: Wise Blood / A Good Man is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear it Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays and Letters by Sally Fitzgerald, Flannery O'Connor
5.0
(A note to self: never NEVER again resolve to read a profound author's complete works from beginning to an end. It sounds awesome at first, but it can kill some joy in coming back to renewed sparks of love for your favourite author.)
How do you review a book like this? After all, one is only human.
Now I don't mean it in that kind of grandiose way we praise big authors like Shakespeare in encyclopaedias. I say it because as much as I love O'Connor's work, I don't think I fully get it yet. I think I recommend her novels the most. [b:Wise Blood|48467|Wise Blood|Flannery O'Connor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389629799s/48467.jpg|1046530] has been the most insane ride since of the Christ-haunted South since my encounter with the crushing [b:Absalom, Absalom!|373755|Absalom, Absalom!|William Faulkner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388474680s/373755.jpg|1595511] and for [b:The Violent Bear It Away|48468|The Violent Bear It Away|Flannery O'Connor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388381676s/48468.jpg|1510479] I can't even think of any proper comparison. Both books I'm sure I misunderstand on some level, but they totally got under my skin and floored me. But if you never read O'Connor , it is the safest to start with her short stories (any collection).
In one of her essays Flannery discusses a problem that the reader wants his grace warm and binding, not dark and disruptive. She is particularly good exactly at this disruption, especially when it comes to bring forth the motivations of her characters, those strange fascinating people who are hardly ever nice. All of O'Connor's writing naturally centers around faith as practiced in reality, not in expectation. As she wrote,
I don't believe that you can impose orthodoxy on fiction. I do believe that you can deepen your own othodoxy by reading if you are not afraid of strange visions. Our sense of what is contained in our faith is deepened less by abstractions than by an encounter with mystery in what is human and often perverse.
or
And all I can say about my love of God, is, Lord help me in my lack of it. I distrust pious phrases, particularly when they issue from my mouth. I try militantly never to be affected by the pious language of the faithful but it is always coming out when you least expect it.
It is not necessary to add more. I hope I will soon make some time to re-read each of her books and review it separately. I cannot contain her entire works in this modest review form. For now on, I recommend you to just read Flannery O'Connor's work and experience her. As simple as that. Come to this complete edition for little nuggets of weirdness, such as the essay on peacocks, an introduction to the biography of a disfigured little girl or her dryly funny correspondence (which makes me want her as my pen-friend).
Self-portrait (1953) ...a picture worth a thousand words.
How do you review a book like this? After all, one is only human.
Now I don't mean it in that kind of grandiose way we praise big authors like Shakespeare in encyclopaedias. I say it because as much as I love O'Connor's work, I don't think I fully get it yet. I think I recommend her novels the most. [b:Wise Blood|48467|Wise Blood|Flannery O'Connor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389629799s/48467.jpg|1046530] has been the most insane ride since of the Christ-haunted South since my encounter with the crushing [b:Absalom, Absalom!|373755|Absalom, Absalom!|William Faulkner|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388474680s/373755.jpg|1595511] and for [b:The Violent Bear It Away|48468|The Violent Bear It Away|Flannery O'Connor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388381676s/48468.jpg|1510479] I can't even think of any proper comparison. Both books I'm sure I misunderstand on some level, but they totally got under my skin and floored me. But if you never read O'Connor , it is the safest to start with her short stories (any collection).
In one of her essays Flannery discusses a problem that the reader wants his grace warm and binding, not dark and disruptive. She is particularly good exactly at this disruption, especially when it comes to bring forth the motivations of her characters, those strange fascinating people who are hardly ever nice. All of O'Connor's writing naturally centers around faith as practiced in reality, not in expectation. As she wrote,
I don't believe that you can impose orthodoxy on fiction. I do believe that you can deepen your own othodoxy by reading if you are not afraid of strange visions. Our sense of what is contained in our faith is deepened less by abstractions than by an encounter with mystery in what is human and often perverse.
or
And all I can say about my love of God, is, Lord help me in my lack of it. I distrust pious phrases, particularly when they issue from my mouth. I try militantly never to be affected by the pious language of the faithful but it is always coming out when you least expect it.
It is not necessary to add more. I hope I will soon make some time to re-read each of her books and review it separately. I cannot contain her entire works in this modest review form. For now on, I recommend you to just read Flannery O'Connor's work and experience her. As simple as that. Come to this complete edition for little nuggets of weirdness, such as the essay on peacocks, an introduction to the biography of a disfigured little girl or her dryly funny correspondence (which makes me want her as my pen-friend).
Self-portrait (1953) ...a picture worth a thousand words.