A Funny Coincidence

I would like to write about Flannery O'Connor. I am listening to a band called As I Lay Dying, which is, of course, a novel by another Southern Gothic writer, William Faulkner. This is a coincidence I appreciate.

I'm reading O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, which is one of her few novels (she was much more known for short stories). It is...bizarre. But it's written at a fairly simple level, so at least you aren't ensnared by thick language. Yet as bizarre as it has been so far -- and it's the sort of bizarre, I must add, that is somehow unnerving -- I find myself liking it and wanting more. In fact, had it not been for other tasks tonight (new (Craigslist new) washer and dryer installation -- not the most fun task but one that will pay dividends the next time I need to do laundry and don't want the house to sound like it's foundations are crumbling), I would have indulged myself. But it is the sort of story that you can pick up and plow through easily enough, so it's just as well I wait until some lunch hour later this week.

Are you familiar with Ms. O'Connor? Southern authors in general? Have you thoughts on the species? My opinion, of course, is tainted by the two lovely years I spent in Georgia, but for what it's worth, I'm an ardent supporter. Ms. O'Connor, to recommend her further, was born in that most beautiful and haunted of towns -- Savannah, Georgia. If you're not yet ready to give Southern fiction a chance, perhaps you'd do well to begin by spending a few days (and nights) in Savannah, whereupon its spook and charm may win you over to the South and its band of storytellers.