Flannery O'Connor and Community

I just finished reading Flannery O'Connor's collection of short stories A Good Man is Hard to Find. So creepy. So Southern. So good. I particularly liked the one about the Bible salesman who steals an Atheist woman's wooden leg. Bizarro.

(Side note: Flannery? Really? Why? How much do you dislike your child?)

Two things struck me in particular (well, three, but two about the actual writing). One: O'Connor writes from her Catholic faith. It's apparent in all of her stories; they all have elements of faith and grace and, I would say, redemption. But it never once bothered me, it was never overdone. It's nice to know, I guess. I sometimes worry (and this may be completely stupid) that my heritage of faith will affect my writing negatively. It's silly, now, seeing it typed out like that. But anyone who creates is bound to have ridiculous worries, it's a natural extension of putting yourself out in the world. And I think, most of the time, the worries are only our own and not ridiculous at all.

Two: Geography is a part of us. I read a large chunk of Road Angels by Kent Nerburn and what I read (which was great) was basically a travelogue discussing how geography effects the way we write. If you took O'Connor out of the South, I'm sure she would have been a good writer, but I don't think she would have been so mesmerizing. I hope the cold, the quiet, the distance, the importance of summer, the pine trees - I hope it all works its way into my writing. And a cursory observation: I feel a sadness for people that have been removed from their homeland. It must be like missing a part of your actual identity.

Third: I bought this book on half.com which is a great place to buy books. I always buy the cheapest ones and usually they come a little scuffed up or there is maybe some pencil underlining strong phrases or whatever. I don't mind. Books ought to have character. I like things with character. If you come to one of my shows or to my house or whatever, ask me about my '81 Guild that I bought at Willie's American Guitars. It's a year older than me and all the worse for wear. And I LOVE it. Anyway, this book is the exception. The girl who owned it first, Shannon Thompson, went through the whole thing with marker of all different colors (I think she was particularly fond of pink). She drew hearts in places. Made weird comments that made me think she might be in middle school. At the end of the book, on the last blank page, she just wrote "I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING." It was kind of funny, when it wasn't obnoxious. And I felt like I got to know her a little. Which is weird, because usually reading a book is such a solitary experience. Today I actually caught myself wondering if I could get in touch with her to ask her about some of her comments. Most of them were just lame (at one point in the leg-stealing story she simply wrote "Weirdo") but some of them were perplexing enough for me to want to ask about why she thought this or why she wrote that. Anyway, it got me thinking about starting a book group. Or community reading. Or why music is so much more popular than books. I think we are, for the most part, attracted to activities that will shove us into community. And this version of A Good Man is Hard to Find did exactly that.