Short Story Selections from Flannery O’Connor: There is Little Easy Comfort Here

“The Geranium,” “The Displaced Person,” and “Judgment Day”

I’m fond of saying I love Flannery O’Connor; I am also considering using some of her work in my dissertation. However, I must admit that I haven’t read enough. What I have read has been terrific: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is still one of my favorite short stories.

What I was reminded of as I read these three O’Connor stories yesterday was the intricate craftsmanship in an O’Connor story. I think it was Hemingway who said something to the extent of, “In a good story, 90% isn’t stated.” Well, if this is the real judge of good short story writing, then Flannery O’Connor is one of the best. Almost every one of her lines says more than it says – or, perhaps, they all do more than they simply say.

If you’ve never read her before, be prepared to meet spiteful, hypocritical characters that are hard to like; be prepared to be shocked by the bursts of violence. Don’t expect to be coddled; don't expect to find stories with trite, happy endings. Don’t expect to be comforted – well, at least not in the normal sense. In worlds of egotistical and myopic characters, worlds of bitter labor and little reward, the hand and grace of God (mind you, not in any overt or saintly way) is at work – and this should be comforting.

Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox: GK Chesterton: The Genius Rambling of Gilbert Keith

It must stated off the bat that there is not too much biography in this biography. Some of this is the fact that we don't know a whole lot about St. Thomas; some a result of Chesterton’s rambling structure, using points about St. Thomas as springboards to criticize of Chesterton's contemporary thinkers or personal ideas he saw as important – but they are wonderful ramblings: full of life and wit and lightheartedness and seriousness: in a word, a vibrant orthodoxy.

You get a flavor of Thomas’ philosophy from the book, but the taste, while succinct, is also thorough. In explaining some of the foundation of Aquinas’ philosophy, Chesterton states:

“To this question, ‘Is there anything?’ St. Thomas begins by answering, ‘Yes’; if he began by answering, ‘No’, it would not be the beginning, but the end. That is what some of us call common sense. Either there is no philosophy, no philosophers, no thinkers, no thought, no anything; or else there is a real bridge between the mind and reality.”

Particularly interesting to me was a view into Aquinas’ use of Aristotle to combat narrow Augustinian pessimism or Manichaeism: the idea that the natural world is corrupt and evil, and only the spiritual is positively good. Using Aristotle’s anti-dualism (the soul is not separate from the body as in Plato, but instead the soul is the form of the body), St. Thomas reaffirms the ancient Catholic truth that all creation is good. The physical and natural is real and holy and dignified, even if affected by the Fall: “Any extreme of Catholic asceticism is a wise, or unwise, precaution against the evil of the Fall; it is never a doubt about the good of the Creation.”

I fully recommend this book for anyone with an interest in Aquinas or philosophy, or Catholic thought. For me, more than inspiring me to go back and relook at Aquinas (which I should do) this book have reminded me to get back into the books and ideas and words of the genius of Gilbert Keith.

Middlesex: Jeffrey Eugenides

The House of the Spirits: Isabel Allende

The Giver, Lois Lowry: Simple Artistry

What a terrific, terrific little book! I was hooked right away, and the novel sustained my attention to the end. I read this on the heels of Collins’ Hunger Games, and wow, what a distinct difference. While there’s little artistry in the former, Lowry’s novel is delightfully artistic.

Here’s one simple example of narration. (Narration sets the tone and foundation for everything else: plot, character, conflict, etc. How something is told is often as important, or perhaps intrinsically connected to, what is being told.)

Hunger Games is written in first-person. Our protagonist is a spunky, inventive, selfless, and confused girl of about fifteen: Katniss. Since she is narrating the novel, we learn about everything from her. However, she is so intensely obtuse at times; for example, it is abundantly clear to the reader that the other boy character, Peeta, “likes” her in a romantic sort of way. We need only hear one story about their past and we know it. However, Katniss doesn't see this through the entire novel, and in fact, she still is a bit confused by the end.

Now, it’s OK for a reader to “catch” more in first-person narratives than the narrators themselves – up to a point. It must be subtle and complex. Hunger Games is neither. The effect is that Suzanne Collins, the author of the novel, becomes so increasingly clear: something you don’t want in fiction. It’s so obvious Collins wants us to recognize Peeta’s interest, even if Katniss doesn’t. And besides this unfortunate intrusion of Collins into the narrative, the situation also doesn't make sense, since we need to assume that Katniss is incredibly dumb to not see what we see; however, we know what one thing she isn't is dumb.

Comparatively, the narration in The Giver is so gifted and well done, despite the fact that the intended audience is younger than Collin’s. Lowry uses a third-person, semi-omniscient narrator. From this lens, the narrator could give us more info than our protagonist, the young and reflective Jonas, has. But there is such compelling restraint in the narration. Although Lowry uses the third-person, she uses free indirect style, and so we tend only to see from Jonas’ perspective – and we tend to only have the knowledge that he has in the moment.

For example, the narrator tries to explain an experience of Jonas’ in which he is throwing an apple around with a friend, but Jonas notices something changing about the apple. The narration is vague and confused, just like Jonas. Later, we learn that Jonas lives in a world without color, and that he has begun to see the color red: hence, the apple. It is so superbly done. I can’t even imagine the butchering involved if Collins tried to write this scene.

So while Hunger Games is in first person, it drifts so far from Katniss’ knowledge and perspective, in fits of un-believability and author-intrusion – while The Giver’s third person narration stays so much closer to the protagonist, opening the door to a more interesting revealing of the plot, not to speak of its ability to introduce irony and psychological depth.

But I drift off topic. The Giver was well-written, well-narrated, and well-constructed. It is one of the best young adults / children’s books I’ve ever read. It only took a sitting or two, so take the time and enjoy it.

The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins: Apparently We're All Selfish and Violent

Hmm. I have mixed opinions about this novel. (By the way, there will be some spoilers here, but nothing concerning how the conflict is resolved; just some early stuff.)

On the one hand, literarily, the book is rather poor. It is intended for middle-school aged kids, but that’s no excuse. For example, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, intended for a younger audience, is superbly written. Hunger Games is probably closer to Harry Potter, in the sense that it tells a good story and gets you hooked, but it has little artistry. But it has even less than Potter, in my opinion.

But it keeps your attention – and not always in a bad way, like the horribly conceived and written Da Vinci Code. Collins spins a fast moving and exciting story, and I found myself rooting for the protagonist, despite the fact that she was an annoyingly naïve (and often just annoying).

But there was an ethical question that I feel the novel never entertained. Quick recap: In a post-apocalyptic world, the US is controlled by one wealthy city; it manages twelve outposts, who all do some sort of forced work for the city: one is agricultural; another technical; our protagonist’s deals with mining coal. In order to maintain their power and fear, every year the city sponsors the hunger games: an “entertainment” for all. Each outpost randomly selects one girl and one boy to go to the city and play in a “fight to the death” game, which is televised. There can only be one winner.

Now, apart from the reasonable furrowed foreheads on account of this being the storyline intended for twelve-year olds (I wouldn't let my kids, if they were twelve, read it), I have a bit of a moral question for the novel. How come the protagonist never engages the possible idea of not killing other people in the game: other people who are innocent? Now, I understand it wouldn't be much of a book then, and I also realize that most people wouldn't agree with this moral choice, but that the novel never even entertains the moral option is…well, beyond unpleasant, actually puzzling. Is the idea that if we were all faced with the choice of accepting death or trying to kill innocent people we would all take out the swords and clubs and bash each other to death?

Just once, the boy from our protagonist’s outpost lightly hints at the possibility of not killing anyone – but he admits he’s not serious. But that’s it. It never comes back up. I understand that in a kid’s book it’s difficult to deal with intricate moral quandaries, but this novel actually makes a moral statement: and it’s one that is self-defeating. While our protagonist desires to live, and more importantly, while she makes friends and teams up with other contestants, she essentially recognizes their humanity. But she is also free to kill other innocent people. Collins gets away with this by making some of the contestants bloodthirsty and consciously sadistic, so it’s easy for us to say, “Oh yeah, kill him, he’s a horrible person.” But I didn't buy it all.

The book is just one of three; but although I read it quickly, even on an entertainment level, I wasn't sold enough to go ahead and read the other two. I will admit it has something to do with my unsettling feelings concerning its moral levels.

A Visit from the Goon Squad: Jennifer Egan: Structure Through Disorder

This book won the Pulitzer a few years back. As someone who doesn't read much new fiction, I’ve decided to remedy the situation. This doesn't mean giving up on classics or anything like that, but simply adding to my diet.

The structure of this book is interesting, to say the least. Every chapter is written by different narrator (sometimes first person, sometimes third). The chapters also go back and forth in time. Most intriguingly, the chapters are not all about the same people. They are held together by a set of characters; but there’s no central protagonist. So the annoying boss of the protagonist in the chapter 1, who’s only mentioned a few times, becomes the protagonist in chapter 2. And then this boss is only a minor kid on the outside of a punk rock group in chapter 3. And so on.

I decided I like the book. Now, I like most books, so I’m relatively easy to please. But I (for the most part) bought Egan’s artifice. The beginning and end of the book were weak, but the middle was pretty terrific, held together by some really funny chapters. We are transported to the future by the end of the novel, and Egan falls into clichés as we are brought into a world of Uber- and spiraling commercialism (now kids don’t run the music market; babies and toddlers do, since they can order songs on their little computer-things); a world affected by the global warming crisis (the world is more of a dessert these days); and so on.

The novel is tied together thematically, focusing on the music market, the collective inability of people to understand and communicate with one another (especially across generational lines), the crux of moral decisions, and other such subjects. While Egan’s creativity makes the trip worthwhile, I got the impression of someone trying to make more of the human person and ethics than his or her own intellectual foundation allows for. Egan wants to believe in the worth of the individual, amidst the craziness of the world and consumerism and impersonal structures, and she tries to present him or her as such; but there’s a certain hollowness is the attempt, a result of the lack of intellectual (and dare I say, theological) underpinning to her worldview.

By the way, there’s a whole chapter in slides, like PowerPoint, with flow charts and the like. I was skeptical of it as I began it, but it was well done. Impressive – like the novel as a whole.

Was Lincoln a Racist? Of Course. Does it Matter? Not Very Much.

Introduction

I try to read at least one book concerned with American history every summer. Last year, I tackled McCullough’s popular John Adams, which was really well done. I was led to read something on Lincoln this year, so I picked up Stephen Oates’ With Malice Toward None, a book published in the 70’s, but still one of the classic biographies of the epic figure.

It was a relatively strong book. Some of the writing got a little flowery or emotional when it didn’t feel appropriate. Also, it wasn’t always clear when a quotation was woven into the sentence whether Oates was citing the words of Lincoln or simply citing another historical book. But I was happy with the pace. Great proof that the book did a good job “being a book” was the fact that I was significantly emotional during the narrative of the day of his assassination. Compared to the Adams’ bio, I didn’t get the fullest picture of Lincoln’s personal life and inner thoughts. But Adams wrote copious letters and journaled throughout the majority of his life, while Lincoln did neither.

Lincoln, The Man

Lincoln spent much of his young adult and adult trying to distance himself from his past. It was a childhood of an intense and immense poverty only tolerable by the very poor. Good ole' Abe (who hated the name “Abe,” as he saw it as a “poor man’s name”) was very conscious of the social respect for lawyers and politicians. He didn't deny this was some of the appeal. When he became a real candidate for the presidency, he was interviewed for a short bio. He said very, very little about his childhood, stating that nothing really needed to be said about it.

Lincoln suffered from bouts of deep depression, something they referred to during that time as “hypochondria.” He was an extreme conversationalist (apparently enjoyed telling rather lewd jokes), but he could also be very much an isolationist, especially when he had “a bad case of the hypo.” One of the other human elements is Lincoln’s lack of personal confidence; he constantly second-guessed himself, viewing himself as a failure at many points in his life. Unlike the statuesque and statesman’s stoicism we usually attribute to the man, he battled with a poor self-image, even as president.

I connect this inner demon of self-doubt to John Adams, who, after appearing in public with unflinching confidence, would journal about not being liked, or thinking people thought him silly, or other like things. Perhaps this sort of self-doubt, coupled with a determination to continue and persevere in spite of it, is a mark of strong man and leader: Perhaps this sort of humility prevents hubris, which can prove myopic; perhaps it can help keep people constantly attentive to the truth of the situation. I’m interesting to see if this quality is common in other accounts I read in the future.

Through the humanizing picture Oates paints, we get an authentic and principled man. It’s a sort of authenticity and principle I doubt could be attributed to almost any modern politicians. Now, perhaps I’m not giving modern politicians enough credit; or more possibly, I’m believing too much in the words of someone like Oates. However, I’m fine with the narrative I read, fictitious or not.

Lincoln's Racism, and Racism of the Times

What I was struck by was the extreme racism of Lincoln, at least by modern standards. He didn’t see the slaves as having much intellectual promise; because of this fact, he didn’t want to give them much political power. He was against interracial marriage. He said it disgusted him. He thought a country of mulattos was bound to fail. Also, he was afraid of freeing the slaves since he sympathized with the fear that black men would be very prone to rape white women. There was, though, a sense of the “older brother” racism in him: Blacks are lower and less than us, but it’s our responsibility to care for them because of this, and not take advantage of it.

What set him apart from other racists was his firm belief that what made the blacks and whites equal was their sharing in the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He didn’t think they were, or should be, equal is many other areas; but slavery was wrong because it violated the “Declaration of Independence.” Interestingly, the way a lot of pro-slavery politicians got around this fact was that they insisted that the writers of the “Declaration” and “Constitution” were speaking only of whites when they wrote that “all men are created equal.” They had a point, since the Constitution protected slavery. Also, how could they have meant blacks and whites were really equal if they said in so many other documents that they didn’t believe they were equal? But Lincoln’s insistence on arguing against this line of thought, along with his resolve in seeing slavery as the principal moral sin of America, was what made him the man he was.

The Birth of the Republican Party

Another interesting historical account you get in the book is the beginning of the Republican party. It was a bipartisan – Whigs and Democrats – party joined by the belief that the Nebraska-Kansas Act was unconstitutional and would lead the country to disaster. The act championed state supremacy in an effort to allow new territories to choose to be pro-slavery or not, despite the fact that the Missouri Compromise said there would not be slavery above a certain geographical line. Lincoln insisted that the founders allowed slavery to exist only because they knew it would eventually die out if only allowed in the states where it already existed. Lincoln thought this would eventually happen, even if not in his lifetime. But the Nebraska-Kansas Act threatened this eventual death by allowing slavery to grow and prosper.

These beginning Republicans agreed that the federal government could in fact weigh in on slavery issues in all states, as long as they acted constitutionally. The Democrats sought to limit government control and power, calling the Republican party the beginnings of a totalitarian regime. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Final Thoughts

Do I recommend the book? Yes. Since I have no other Lincoln bio to point to instead, this proved a good look into the life, person, and politics of a hugely influential and important American figure. It also proved an interesting look into the incredibly unique ideas and beliefs of an age that, although not so distant, feels almost medieval.

What American figure should I tackle next? Jefferson? MLK?