“There is something in us, as storytellers and as
listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what
falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks
for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it.
His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the
price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense
tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either
to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”—Southern novelist and short-story
writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, edited
by Sally Fitzgerald (1969)
1 comment:
Interesting lady.
As an English major, I read extensively. "A Good Man is Hard to Find," is widely acknowledged to be the American best short story of the last century.
Her personal story is weird.
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