The essays and letters reveal O’Connor’s sharp perceptions about literature and life, her devotion to her art, her Catholic faith, and her courage in the face of great physical pain and the anticipation of death.
This excerpt is from the book cover of the Collected Works of Flannery O’Connor. My copy is the Eighteenth Edition, 1988, published by the Library of America. This volume contains Flannery’s short stories, essays and letters.
Flannery O’Connor was an author of fiction, short stories and essays. Her life was marked by the pain of lupus which she lived with for over nine years. Despite that formidable pain she continued to write fiction, and letters to many of her literary friends. Her father’s life was cut short by the same disease and Flannery knew her tomorrows were shrinking from a few years to a few months and finally, to a few days. She was of the Catholic faith and I understand that she daily attended Mass. Her story lines were filtered and laced with characters who were in some way colored by religion. Yet her imagination was totally on display by the twists of weirdness many of her characters displayed throughout her story lines. I was intrigued by The Misfit, Flannery dropped into her A Good Man Is Hard To Find story.
“Lady,” The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the woods, “there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip.”
There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called “Bailey Boy, Baily Boy!” as if her heart would break.
“Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead,”The Misfit continued, “and He shouldn’t have done it. He thrown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can – by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness,” he said and his voice had become almost a snarl. This excerpt is found on page 152.
Flannery O’Connor apparently wrote until she took her last breath at the young age of thirty-nine. Taken too early. Us, her audience, can not imagine what a treasure trove of literature she would have added to her remarkable writings if she was able to put pen to paper into old age. Our loss. Before I end, I share here an excerpt from a letter she wrote To A……, 28 October 1961. This letter is found on page 1153 of my copy. Here she shares the ebb and flow of her faith.
But let me tell you this: faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think unbelief will.
She ends this train of thought by stating: Subtlety is the curse of man. It is not found in the deity.
Flannery O’Connor’s forever, in this lifetime, was to last only two more years after the penning of this letter. She passed away in 1963 .
This month I began reading historian Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1990 biography titled Eisenhower, Soldier and President. My attempt of a sit down at my literary table partaking of a tasteful full course meal of non-fiction and fiction.
So much to reflect upon this month: A new start up to our forever wars, our K shaped economy that weekly reminds me I am at the bottom of said K as I put gas into my overpriced used car. Our daily news is comprised of the coldness of political sniping on both sides of our divide where even the Pope is targeted. Does any one else find it ironic that at the height of our 250th anniversary of our Revolution against England and his great great great great grandfather King Charles, his current grandson, King Charles, spoke to our divided Congress eloquently inspiring us to polish our democracy to the ideal shine that he feels is still apparent under our current malaise and leaderless tarnish?
A lot to digest but I am fixated on another concern. As you know if you have followed me over these past ninety months, I love books. I love reading them in hand and to my family’s chagrin, I love piling new books in front of me as I find time to open each one! I share here a social media post from April 9th that resonates with me. The author I do not know.
I have read many books in my life, but I don’t remember most of the information I gained from them. So, what’s the benefit of reading so many books?
One day , a student asked his professor the same question. The professor remained quiet and didn’t answer that day. A few days later, the student and the professor met by a river. The professor showed the student a pot with holes and said, “Let’s go get water from the river with this pot.” The pot broke on the ground. The student felt confused, thinking it was a useless task, as it was impossible to carry water with a pot fill of holes.
However, he couldn’t disobey his professor’s advice, so he picked up the broken pot and ran towards the river. He filled the pot with water and brought it back, but he couldn’t go far. A few steps later, the water leaked out the holes and fell to the ground. He tried several times but failed and felt frustrated.
Afterward, he returned to his professor and said ,”I failed. I couldn’t bring water in this pot. It is impossible for me, please forgive me; please forgive me.” The professor smiled sweetly and said, “You didn’t fail. Look at the pot, it’s clean now. It looks like a new pot. Whenever the water leaks out of the holes, the dirt inside is washed away. The same thing happens to you. When you read a book, your mind is like the pot with holes, and the information in the book is like the water. When you read a book, you don’t remember everything. But is it necessary to remember all the content? No, because reading books gives you ideas, knowledge, feelings, emotions, and truths that cleanse your mind.
Whenever you read a book, you undergo a spiritual transformation, and you are reborn as a new person. This is the main reason for reading books.”
My concern as I gaze out into the rising tide this month is the news that many of my neighboring towns and cities are facing fiscal budget problems. Of course the main recourse is to cut local town budgets putting our children’s education at risk along with all other services. It appears that local municipal budgets are also on the lower part of our K economy but unlike our federal entities that have the money printing press allowing them to cover up their spendthrift ways, our towns, city and State haveto balance their budgets each year. This year libraries are at risk of reducing hours or worse closing!
As Walter Cronkite once exclaimed, “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
Thank you for reading!
Be at peace and joy.
Mark