A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories

by Flannery O'Connor

[jamiereadthis]

First things first, O’Connor did exactly what she intended to do here. It’s not a failure by any stretch (if, at times, close-cropped and uneven). Whatever she’s doing, cruel and unusual, she’s good at it. But dear God, it just happens to be the exact kind of thing that revolts something deep down in my gut. I’m usually all on board with the creepy, crazy, what-have-you, but the difference here is that nobody is even alive before they’re dead.

“Bleak,” “oppressive,” “macabre,” all of that applies, but I’ve seen it applied to Cormac McCarthy too and there I have the opposite visceral reaction. So what gives? For me, it’s not about death and the close tangle with it or the darkly funny nihilism. That’s not bleak to me. It’s refreshing, invigorating, valuable. The difference is, McCarthy likes his people. They’re alive. Shit happens, yeah, and the world is a rough rough place, but it has real human people and whatever it is we call a soul, it’s there. And it’s worth fighting for. It may have a good enough dose of evil but it’s not shrunk down with hate.

There was this other review that said O’Connor believes in God but not so much in people, and all things considered that’s exactly it. The thing is, I need the opposite. I need it the other way around.