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One of Two Must Own Collection of Short Stories

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The other is Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. I know this may seem odd to have O'Connor, the genius of revealing the inner workings of the human, beside Gaiman, but if you read Gaiman the connections are there. I'm all about getting readers from different disciplines and genres to connect with other fields. O'Connor's work, as most know, is as perceptive as it gets. Reading her work is a pure revelation, an ongoing epihpany as to what makes humans human (especially the southern religious human). Read, re-read and enjoy.

Completely Unique

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This is my favorite book of short stories. I am amazed at how the author can blend such a diverse mixture of feelings into a story. Each story is humorous and heartbreaking. O'Connor has a knack for examining the thoughts in her characters' minds, and although they seem to be a little over the top, the characters are grounded in reality. I enjoy the fact that you can read this book for the pleasure of the crazy stories, or you may read it to delve into an examination of the religious themes uncovered. I would start with Flannery O'Connor by reading this book and then move on to reading Wise Blood or The Violent Bear It Away. It will be somewhat hard to understand those novels if you are not familiar with her short stories first. I think you will find this book fascinating.

Flannery O'Connor, one twisted sister

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This was my first introduction to O'Connor's work. Had I known how thoeoughly I would enjoy, I would have read her years ago. I grew up in the South and always thought I got a pretty good education. But I was never introduced to Flannery O'Connor's work. From the dark and stark nature of her unique characters, I suppose I can see why she might have been excluded. Her work shines a bright light on the flaws and foibles that make us human. She does not show the lovely views of gentle Southern living with mint julips on the veranda. She shows the frustrated rednecks and misfits of rural life. A truly excellent read.

American Sophocles

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Thomas Merton said of O'Connor that when he thought of her, he did not think of her in terms of her peers in contemporary fiction (i.e., Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck) but rather, he thought of Sophocles or Aeschylus. This compendium more than validates Merton's assessment -- after the American Empire passes, O'Connor's achievement will remain as its literary zenith. It's doubly strange, too, both for the form in which she specialized, and the content of the works. Americans (always poor judges of their own culture's worth) normally speak in terms of "The Great American Novel" --"The Naked and the Dead," "Ravelstein," "Moby Dick," "The Great Gatsby," even newcomers like "The Bonfire of the Vanities, ", "The Corrections" and "Infinite Jest" are mentioned as contenders for the title. And the content of most candidates for anything "great" or "American" must always involve wealth, splendor, orgiastic sex or consumption of some kind. O'Connor's characters, for all their supposed grotesquerie, are far less exaggerated or caricatured than any others in American fiction. Furthermore, unlike the other authors mentioned above -- particularly unlike Tom Wolfe -- she was never in search of the "thousand-footed beast," that all-consuming rig veda of a novel. And yet, in her own, simple, steady way, she outpaces the Mailers and Franzens and their febrile journalism. O'Connor is the consummate artist craftsman, who sees her art for what it truly is -- "reason in making" -- who finds reason in the created world, and informs her creations with a parallel, answering reason. Her mental eye is unwavering, like the beam of a lighthouse -- it is always pointed at truth. For that reason, O'Connor will probably never have the same popularity in this land of artifice and subterfuge that those others listed above will enjoy. History, nonetheless, will give her the laurels.

The Devil's In The Details

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"Grace changes us, and change is painful." O'Connor, a delicate Southern Catholic who lived a third of her life ravaged by lupus, was certainly acquainted with pain. Her stories reveal this much. Many readers and reviewers may wonder if she doesn't take a bit of artistic license with her definition of "grace," though. Considering her religious ideologies (which aren't hard to figure out, even after reading just one of these deliciously dark little tales), her unsubtle brutality isn't so unexpected. Look God directly in the face, the Bible says, and it completely and utterly destroys you. It's safe to say that even if her characters don't always get an unobstructed view of their Creator, they all at least catch a glimpse. O'Connor is not shy about her beliefs, and in fact, her unswerving social sensibilities are part of what make her writing so delectable. Read closely, because every single detail is important and potent. And just like the Bible she adheres to so fervently, the endings to her stories are forecasted unapologetically by every word that comes before them. This in no way ruins the power of those conclusions. Read a hundred interviews with a hundred writers, and I guarantee you that many of them will mention, as inspiration, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." Sit down for twenty minutes with the hilarious and heart-breaking "River," and ask yourself if your foreknowledge didn't rob the final lines of their shuddering ferocity. Visit "A Displaced Person," meet "Enoch and the Gorilla," stay for awhile with "Greenleaf," and take a good long look at "A View of the Woods." You may find yourself wondering if there is any compassion and hope in O'Connor's world, but you'll never doubt that it is full of meaning, full of necessity, and full of heavenly fire. There's a legitimate beef some may have with this collection. "O'Connor has written an amazing story," one of my friends once said. "I just don't know why she chose to write it thirty-one times." It's fair to say that O'Connor doesn't stray much from her predictably gruesome formula. But while her themes never change much (purification through fire, self-knowledge gained via self-destruction, and the immolations brought on by racism and doubt), her telling of them is so fine and so stark, the details themselves are what really showcase her writing's true brilliance and beauty. This collection is arranged in chronological order, and it is part of the treat to see her ideas age as she does. Her final story, the aptly titled "Judgement Day" is a revision of her first story, "The Geranium." The differences between the two show most openly where O'Connor hides the hope and faith and love that many feel is missing from all the works between. O'Connor, like the God in which she believed, seems too ready to expose her characters to an amazing amount of pain and degredation. But if you look close enough, if you read every sentence carefully, you'll see that she makes necessary every sacrifice, every drop of blood, every harsh, scalding ray of sun. In an era now where authors tend to shock for shock's sake, O'Connor stands out as a timeless reminder that as senseless and vicious as life's stories may sometimes seem, there is still the chance that behind it all lies a deeper, knowable truth. That truth may come at some great costs, but, O'Connor seems to say, it is better to buy with your flesh something lasting and real, than to sell your soul for even a whole world of lies.