Dark and Dazzling: Flannery O’ConnorThe American Short Story & The Southern GothicThursday 8 PM, May 30, June 6, 13, 20Tuesday section will be opened on demand!When I began teaching at the University of Iowa, I was assigned three sections of GenEd Lit, General Education Literature, that one required literature course science majors didn’t want to take, but couldn’t graduate without. The students came to class because they had to, they read the stories because they had to. I taught some of my favorite books and stories sitting on the teacher’s desk, because I was too short and because I thought I’d look cool, but neither did my syllabus nor my choice of seat got much out of the students. That is to say, not until I taught Flannery O’Connor. Then one student raised his hand, and said, This story is different.Shit, I thought, I am caught.Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” was the only story on my syllabus that did not make me cry the first time I read it. It was a professional choice, an intellectual endeavor to prove the power of words. It was a story, a puzzle, an appeal for the brain, and yet I was the teacher who walked in the first day wearing a t-shirt with the picture of an anatomically correct heart above the word brain.The students wanted the more emotional stories, and the one different story made them understand and name their wish. I too wanted to read the stories that touched me, that stayed with me, that made me think about the big questions, the meaning of life, the human connection, the good and evil.I didn’t teach O’Connor for another ten years.Then, at the end of 2023, you voted for Flannery O’Connor to be among the writers I teach. Ten years older, I knew I had to approach her with curiosity, that I had to give myself, not her, another chance. Maybe this time she’d move me. And she sure did.I set out to read as many of her stories as I could. There aren’t many. She died at the age of 39, having written 31 short stories, 3 novels, and essays on writing, along with letters and journals.When I first read her, I thought Flannery O’Connor was violent and religious. I resisted violence and religion, and I couldn’t see what lay beneath them. Still, O’Connor’s stories were efficient, economical, they shocked and surprised readers, made them laugh and gasp, and never left a single thread loose. She was perfect, and as a writing student, I was to respect her, and I did. But it’s only recently that I came to love her.Reading her again, I was surprised to find in her stories everything I blamed her lacking. Her religion now struck me as a guiding force. It is a force that makes one ask questions and a force one answers to. The violence, cruelty, and indifference all took on a different hue. Mankind always had a dark side. Instead of denying it, I was now invited to consider how that darkness was present in my every action, why and how I didn’t act on it, and why and how O’Connor’s characters did. I could see how violence and religion were connected. We don’t have to call it God’s grace, it could be compassion, self-forgiveness, or a second chance, but I won’t deny the power of being given a second chance after doing your worst. That opens the gates of compassion for when we are better than worse but worse than perfect. (And if you’re living your life following the highest ideals, that’s your entire life.)But I must warn you. We’ve been reading Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, and Alice Munro for the last five months or so. The world of Flannery O’Connor is different. Are you ready to read her stories with an open mind? Are you ready to be curious? Are you ready to confront what you deny, avoid, and fear? If you said yes to at least one of these questions, come. Join us for the last class of the semester. Flannery O’Connor may not convert you, but I know she will transform you!Please contact me to sign up. Classes are capped at 12 people. No exceptions. First come, first served!
Follow The Ways of Black Ink
For free writing resources, information and announcements about reading and writing classes, and that random poem.
https://waysofblackink.wordpress.com/