Day 70.1: The Violent Bear It Away
Jul. 25th, 2024 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionI love Flannery O'Connor's titles. This and Everything That Rises Must Converge are amazing titles. I've just begun reading this work though (technically still part of Carson McCullers Month, since they're both classified as Southern Gothic? I suppose?) and it's gotten me quite rapt. There's that flowing goodness, Flannery writes in a headlong style I think, with lots of 'ands', and compared to Eudora Welty she has a different cadence, and if her short stories are anything to go by, she's a lot less genteel. Also, this might be bias, but I think she's a lot lonelier as well.
So, first chapter of The Violent Bear It Away: That ending! No wonder this was a short story, that ending was the perfect coda. The language O'Connor uses is so much in contrast with the setting, in that it's biblical, but the story itself is set in the 1950s and so many, many things sharply interfere with the prophecy and propheting afoot. Tarwater himself is fascinating since he's absolutely resistant and also ambivalent to his uncle's attempts to make him into a prophet. And what a premise! I'm super interested in how it goes from here.
So, first chapter of The Violent Bear It Away: That ending! No wonder this was a short story, that ending was the perfect coda. The language O'Connor uses is so much in contrast with the setting, in that it's biblical, but the story itself is set in the 1950s and so many, many things sharply interfere with the prophecy and propheting afoot. Tarwater himself is fascinating since he's absolutely resistant and also ambivalent to his uncle's attempts to make him into a prophet. And what a premise! I'm super interested in how it goes from here.
