There were a few stories in the wonderful Library of America volume on Flannery O'Connor that I had yet to finish, most of these being from her earliest publication, The Geranium. I found the time today to read these, finding plenty to admire along the way. In fact, the three from the 1947 collection struck me as being equal to what came later: The Crop, The Turkey and The Train seemed fully achieved and beautifully controlled and I didn't think the re-written 1964 version of The Turkey - entitled An Afternoon in the Woods - which I went onto after completing The Geranium, was in any obvious way superior.
I finished things off with The Partridge Festival which had been a contender for inclusion in the brilliant collection Everything That Rises Must Converge. It was difficult to see what it was that O'Connor had against her own story which it seems she didn't rate so highly.
In the course of reading the stories I took a break, going on-line to read some of the commentary generated by the recent controversy concerning the writer's various expressions of racism in her correspondence. It made for an odd experience. Set against the cold brilliance of her work it all seemed a bit pointless. It's a bit like the whole thing with Larkin, though there's nothing as egregious as Larkin at his worse in O'Connor's casual racism. I mean, nothing has changed about my reading of and regard for Larkin's poems, even though the poet himself was a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work in some respects. In contrast, there are pretty obvious things to admire about O'Connor as a person - her heroic battle against debilitating illness for one - but what I find to admire makes no difference at all to my reading of the work, just as what is obviously deeply unpleasant doesn't either.
Her treatment of the racism in the American South as she knew it is strikingly insightful and extremely uncomfortable. Not a bad combination.
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