Stuff I'm Reading - Flannery O'Connor

Joe McTyre/Atlanta Constitution, From "Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor"

Flannery O'Connor seated beneath her "Self-Portrait With Pheasant Cock" in the living room at Andalusia, June 1962.


Hello all! I worked my 3 days, rested yesterday (was utterly wiped out), and am feeling dandy this day.


Is allergy season upon us? I was really stuffed up yesterday to the point of thinking I had a cold but Zyrtec seems to have worked quite well. FYI: for me it seems to work better than Claritin...


Anyway, I'm currently reading one of two novels written by a fave, Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood. I've always been a sucker for Southern Gothic pieces (e.g. Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers). This one has all of the shady characters one hopes to find in Southern Gothic literature and is heavy on the symbolism. I love to try and decode them and always find things to relate to in them.
Here are the opening lines: Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. The train was racing through tree tops that fell away at intervals and showed the sun standing, very red, on the edge of the farthest woods. Nearer, the plowed fields curved and faded and the few hogs nosing in the furrows looked like large spotted stones. Mrs. Wally Bee Hitchcock, who was facing Motes in this section, said that she thought the early evening like this was the prettiest time of day and she asked him if he didn't think so, too. She was a fat woman with pink collars and cuffs and pear-shaped legs that slanted off the train seat and didn't reach the floor.

He looked at her a second and, without answering, leaned forward and stared down the length of the car again. She turned to see what was back there but all she saw was a child peering around one of the sections and, farther up at the end of the car, the porter opening the closet where the sheets were kept.

"I guess you're going home," she said, turning back to him again. He didn't look, to her, much over twenty, but he had a stiff black broad-brimmed hat on his lap, a hat that an elderly country preacher would wear. His suit was a glaring blue and the price tag was still stapled on the sleeve of it.
I also just finished "Letters of a Woman Homesteader" by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. I finally got around to reading this book. I've known about it for about 10 years after taking a Wyoming History class at the University of Wyoming. This, a true story, is a collection of the letters written by a widow from Denver, Colorado. She and her daughter head to a community somewhat close to Green River, WY to be the housekeeper for a rancher. She quickly marries the rancher but is adamant in her desire to homestead a piece of property on her own. She has a fantastic wit and way with words. I was also struck by this community's love of neighbor and their way of providing for one another's needs.
Peace!