Books
Just read my first Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find . I remember reading the title story somewhere else and it was just as good the second time. She is terrific at conjuring up a sense of mounting dread. Her characters feel real mostly because they act out of motives that are obscure even to themselves. That sense of mystery gestures to the beyond, the religious, the damned and the salvific. There is a dogged persistence to her most memorable characters, like Mr. Head and his grandson Nelson in the otherwise slight story "The Artificial Nigger." The religious symbolism is laid on a bit too thickly for my taste, but hey, I'm not of the South. The masterpieces are here: "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "Good Country People," and "The Displaced Person." The slighter ones too: "A Stroke of Good Fortune," "A Temple of the Holy Ghost," "A Circle in the Fire," "A Late Encounter with the Enemy....