Not Up to a Full Semester of Flannery O'Connor

The blog list for 2012 just recorded my need to read A Good Man is Hard to Find. The book that came with that short story in it from the library was 1,220 onion skin pages of all Flannery's writings, including her personal letters. If this was an elective, I might have slogged through it all; but let's call it the equivalent of a pass/fail course. I read as much as I wanted and now the library won't renew it, so I'll call it a day, month, whatever.

Starting with A Good Man is Hard to Find. Obviously, I can't judge a book by its title. Shades of the 2011 Lust List lingers, making the good man I am looking for about 180 degrees opposite O'Connor's. Her said referenced male is a killing criminal ... not a hint of sexual attraction about him. He is sympathetic only to the extent that the reader intensely dislikes the woman he kills. She is a insistent busy body, hyper-controlling her her family, calling all the shots, including indirectly those that kill them all.

And this is the theme that I cull from the other stories I read from this collection, many of which I really did like: The Life You Save Maybe Your Own; A Temple of the Holy Ghost; The Artificial Nigger; Good Country People; The Displaced Person; I can't list them all. And what did I learn about Flannery? She is cruel. She loves depicting her Southern fellow citizens with all their glaring faults. She is 100% honest, to the detriment of not showing much understanding or forgiveness. Here are all the flaws, nasty ambitions, self-centeredness, racial biases of "unenlightened" Southerners. Yes, she writes powerfully, and even lyrically. But unlike Colum McCann, who can write about characteristics weaknesses, even sins, without a mean bone in his body, Flannery is petty. She wants to settle scores and distributes just desserts, retributions.

Do I like her style and themes? Actually no. Maybe I am overreacting since I have had friends, fellow Slackers, tell me I write like her. God forbid I am that vengeful.