flannery

Ok,so.....the washington post had an article today about flannery o'connor....an author i have never read.....and the piece was a revisit to a book reviewvwritten by the journalist 25 years ago when flannery's letters to a friend were published posthumously.....flannery's mother zealously guarded her daughter's privacy....and thus there remain a colection of letters to an anonymous woman, whose identity is either unknown to the author's remaining family....or a wellkept secret....the following is an exerpt:

"Part of the difficulty of all this is that you write for an audience who doesn't know what grace is and don't recognize it when they see it. All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless, brutal, etc."

The letters began when the woman known only as 'A'...wrote to flannery asking about the religious themes in her fiction.......they corresponded over flannery's remaining 9 years...she died of lupus at 39......letters are so precious thesedays of quick 5-line thank yous...and brief emails and singlepage christmas greetings......that someone wrote enough letters to fill a book is remarkable.....the following is an excerpt of the 25-year old book review of flannery's letters

"She was, these letters tell us in ways her other writings cannot, a great woman. Like all of us, she had her vanities, her moods, her fits of petulance and selfishness -- but these only made her more human. She had saintly qualities, but she was no saint. She was a great writer who, out of a clear and unwavering vision, told stories that at moments reach the luminous borders of perfection. These letters must be counted among her finest and most durable work; they will be read so long as there is room in the world for love, faith, courage and laughter."

I will leave only these blogs when i go....and unless someone downloads them in a timely fashion.....the idle blogspot will be deleted as per policy.....i suppose these blogs could be construed as correspondence.....to myself...or to the abyss.......and most are too chatty to be considered on the borders of luminous perfection....they simply are what they are....and that may be as good as it gets.....