Posted on 03/25/2015 4:09:50 PM PDT by don-o
Mary Flannery O’Connor described herself as a 13th century Catholic and she was right. Surprisingly in an age given to nihilism, progressivism, and consolidation this traditional, Southern, cerebral, talented and orthodox Catholic is among America’s most important writers. There are any number of literary, cultural, and psychological reasons why Mary Flannery stands among the pantheon of American writers but, there are none more important than the fact that she understood an inherent, apodictical truth: modern man has closed his existence, “annihilated the cosmos by contracting reality into himself,” and created a “new world” formed in Hegelian second realities
The beautiful, brilliant, passionate Flannery was God’s partisan guerrilla. She eschewed modernity’s derailments, technocratic miasmas, and the primordial desire to destroy and rebuild in an endless Gnostic rhythm. She was the crusader knight, who understood the metaxical reality as God’s gift; that life was sacrosanct, and the communion of man and the divine proffered redemption in a world distorted by sin. It is this aspect of her personality, of her being, that draws the attention of even the most adamant atheist. Flannery’s gift is her ability to reify the possibility of immortality.
(Excerpt) Read more at theimaginativeconservative.org ...
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I think it was the most depressing thing I ever read, that first short story I read.
Which one was it?
I don’t know, because I never read anything else by O’Connor.
I don't recall the name of the story. It was a morbid dirge about a family of what might be described as white trash crossing paths with some escaped convicts who wind up shooting them.
A good man is hard to find.
“Hegelian second realities...the primordial desire to destroy and rebuild in an endless Gnostic rhythm... who understood the metaxical reality as God’s gift... her ability to reify the possibility of immortality.”
I don’t think that I could ever read this writer.
I’m a fairly devout Catholic, half southern, with a pessimistic view of human nature and modernism, and I don’t get O’Connor, nor can I endure to read her.
Some sort of southern, Catholic take on human blindness and total depravity, not just in nature but in life lived, viewed by a merciful and long-suffering God. I think.
Likewise, don’t read the story that this post is linked to. It is turgid, overwrought, and filled with big words where little ones would do perfectly fine. Flannery O’Connor may have been depressing but at least she could write. Or so I’m told.
Had to read her short stories in college. Hated them...
Sorry to hear that. I bought her complete works last year and I’ve been enjoying the stories, the way of life that she describes and the way people talked back then.
She obviously has quite a following. It just didn’t appeal to me. Maybe because I’ve heard and seen enough stupidity for enough lifetimes that reading stories about it is overkill.
That’s okay. I get your point, though. Stupidity seems to have accelerated during the past 10 years or so.
A bit pedantic, isn’t he?
He’s got some cheek, that guy.
Should I get him a glass of water?
I don't believe I ever read anything by the lady but the article is nearly enough to make sure I would run screaming if her books were brought out.
And I like five dollar words.
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