“Parker’s Back” by Flannery O’Connor
(New! Femme Friday: Every Friday I’ll write a review, post an interview, or discuss in some way, a female writer or editor that rocks my world. I’ll alternate between Indie scene people and more well known or established women, living and dead. Next friday, look out for a review of Jackie Corley’s book, The Suburban Swindle (from So New Media, click here so you can buy it and read it before my review). And- Spoiler Alert! “Parker’s Back” is discussed in full here.)
“And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” Exodus 3, 2
In the short story “Parker’s Back” by Flannery O’Connor, as in all of her work, there is an absence of overt moralizing and yet nearly every moment of the story, every action depicted, expresses the human soul’s struggle against, and toward, the power of God. O’Connor is radical in her de-emphasis on belief: many of her truly saved characters and prophets don’t properly believe in God, but it is God that takes them anyway. O’Connor’s vision of God is more or less that God is something that happens to us.
George Saunders and his enormous, throbbing heart: a homily
Is George Saunders the most radical fiction writer writing in the mainstream today? Or to put it a possibly better way, is Saunders the most mainstream of today’s radical fiction writers? I don’t mean “radical” in terms of style or form–though Saunders has certainly done his share of innovating–but I invoke the term rather in its classic political connotation. I’ve read most of Saunders’s books, and worked with him when I edited Come Back, Donald Barthelme, but something clicked for me yesterday when I read “Al Roosten,” his new story in the current issue of The New Yorker, and after the jump I’m going to talk about it for about 3000 words, and at some point there will be some spoilers, and it’s not really a “spoiler alert” kind of story, but anyway maybe you want to read the story before you read this.
2 Recordings of Flannery O’Connor Reading Her Work!
This comes with a tripple hat-tip, and proves why the internet is awesome.
1) Did you know I have the same name as a somewhat famous preacher? That’s right. Justin Taylor of Wheaton, Illinois, who blogs at Between Two Worlds and is the author and/or editor of several books, including Overcoming Sin and Temptation, Communion with the Triune God, The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, and Where Did Christianity Come From? I often wonder if he knows I exist. I mean, if he searches his own name on Amazon, he’ll get my anthology The Apocalypse Reader, as his #3 response, right between Communion with and Supremacy of.