Posted on 03/14/2015 8:04:26 PM PDT by don-o
In a letter dated May 31, 1960, Flannery OConnor, the author best known for her classic story, A Good Man is Hard to Find (listen to her read the story here) penned a letter to her friend, the playwright Maryat Lee. It begins rather abruptly, likely because its responding to something Maryat said in a previous letter:
I hope you dont have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.
The letter, which you can read online or find in the book The Habit of Being, then turns to other matters.
OConnors critical appraisal of Ayn Rands books is pretty straightforward. But heres one factoid worth knowing. Mickey Spillane (referenced in OConnors letter) was a hugely popular mystery writer, who sold some 225 million books during his lifetime. According to his Washington Post obit, his specialty was tight-fisted, sadistic revenge stories, often featuring his alcoholic gumshoe Mike Hammer and a cast of evildoers. Critics, appalled by the sex and violence in his books, dismissed his writing. But Ayn Rand defended him. In public, she said that Spillane was underrated. In her book The Romantic Manifesto, Rand put Spillane in some unexpected company when she wrote: [Victor] Hugo gives me the feeling of entering a cathedralDostoevsky gives me the feeling of entering a chamber of horrors, but with a powerful guideSpillane gives me the feeling of listening to a military band in a public parkTolstoy gives me the feeling of an unsanitary backyard which I do not care to enter. All of which goes to show that Ayn Rands literary taste was no better than her literature.
She was right about Tolstoy. She was right about a lot of other things, too.
L
“How many books did Flannery OConnor sell?
How many books did Ayn Rand sell?
Let the consumer judge which is a better messenger.
I am not sure that Quantity of book sales should be a strict metric. One could always reply with: How many Korans have been sold? or: How many Bibles have been sold?”
Are YOU Flannery O’Connor?
“How many books did Oprah sell?
Ha.”
OK, I’ll bite. How many books did Oprah sell compared to Ayn Rand?
“... so Ayn Rands fans clearly have higher IQs than that, however Flannery OConnors work is more complex, so the basic point holds true.”
OK, how do we put your position to a test? I disagree with your point. How do you prove it?
I have no idea what this question even means.
War is good for business.
Peace is good for business.
War and Peace is good for insomnia.................
If that were the case, the "Little Red Book" of Chairman Mao, and the Koran, are among the world's greatest literature.
And Oprah and Ayn Rand are greater than Dostoevski.
Which I would dispute.
“My point was that “number of books” does not reveal who was the greater writer.
If that were the case, the “Little Red Book” of Chairman Mao, and the Koran, are among the world’s greatest literature.
And Oprah and Ayn Rand are greater than Dostoevski.
Which I would dispute.”
So, boiled down to basics, we’re talking about your opinion.
Why the deuce should anyone care a fig what Flannery OConnor wrote? Her bio makes her seem like Stephen King's mad spinster aunt!
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