In many of O’Connor’s best stories, “Parker’s Back” prominent among them, the religious theme is so subtly dramatized that it can be overlooked by casual readers unaware of the author’s larger purpose. Whatever else her fiction is, it is not Catholic propaganda.6 In the end, though, a critical approach that denies or downplays O’Connor’s faith will necessarily result in only a partial appreciation of her work. It is no more possible to understand a book like Wise Blood without taking Catholicism seriously—if only to reject it—than it is possible to understand the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer without taking Judaism seriously.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Faith and its discontents ...
... Believing in Flannery O’Connor.
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Frank, let me add to the "conversation" about Flannery O'Connor and Brad Gooch's biography by including my review of Gooch'es work, which can be viewed via this link to BookLoons.
ReplyDeleteAs for Flannery O'Connor, I know of no other writer who has so successfully confronted the tensions that exist(ed) between Catholicism, fiction, and the Christ-haunted fundamentalist American south. To read and understand O'Connor's work, one does not need to be Catholic (e.g., I am not), but one must be at least very familiar with Catholicism (as practiced by O'Connor, which is somewhat different than 21st varieties), and one must not avoid but must come to grips with the aforementioned tensions.
Just as reading Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry (about which I commented in another of your postings) can be a compelling spiritual experience for the astute reader, so also is reading O'Connor's works. In many ways, O'Connor (like Hopkins) serves as a modern day prophet: a messenger who reveals the truth.
In many ways, and for many singular reasons, if I were forced to choose just a handful of books for a lifetime of reading, I would certainly include O'Connor's work among them. And I know that I would never tire of the new discoveries waiting for me in O'Connor's brilliantly nuanced fiction.