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PAGE 6—The Georgia Bulletin, August 22,1974
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■ST* (v 1
Flannery O’Connor Remembered 10 Years Later
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Michael True is chairman of the English
Department at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. His article on
Flannery O’Connor is reprinted with the permission of the CATHOLIC
FREE PRESS, weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Worcester. Miss
O’Connor, a native of Georgia, was a member of Sacred Heart parish in
Milledgeville and in her early career wrote book reviews for the
GEORGIA BULLETIN.)
BY MICHAEL TRUE
August 3 marked the tenth anniversary of Flannery
O’Connor’s death. Even now, after a decade, when her
reputation as one of the masters of short fiction seems
established, one must think of that event as a great loss to
American letters.
I remember reading the brief notice of her tragic death in the
Indianapolis diocesan newspaper, in the late summer of 1964.
(The editor thought it insignificant enough to place it on the
fourth or fifth page.) For me, the news carried with it the
weight of some terrible injustice, and that same evening I called
a friend of mine long distance to tell him about it and to share
the grief. We had spent many hours talking and sometimes
crying, from laughter, about her magnificent stories, especially
“Good Country People,” “Parker’s Back,” and “You Can’t Be
Poorer Than Dead” — stories filled with bizarre, Christ-haunted
figures that, in their strangeness, provoke one to laughter or awe
however often one reads them.
Flannery O’Connor was bom in Savannah, Georgia, on March
3, 1925, daughter of Edward Francis and Regina Cline
O’Connor. Her father died young, victim of the disease, lupus,
that Flannery inherited. Later, she and her mother moved to the
town of Milledgeville, south of Atlanta. She attended Georgia
Woman’s College there and, afterward, the University of Iowa
Writer’s Workshop, where her stories first attracted public
attention. Before her illness crippled her, she spent some time
“among them cold interleckchuls up north,” in New York and
Connecticut; but eventually she returned to Milledgeville, to live
with her mother, to write, and to raise peacocks.
deal frequently with people who have been made ignorant by
too much schooling or hollow by sophistication and artifice.
They are hilarious stories about people, like you and me, who
lose their way in the world or become urban grotesques, like the
man in the gray flannel suit.
Her stories were admired by leading poets and critics,
THE LATE FLANNERY O’CONNOR, noted writer,
is pictured at her Milledgeville, Georgia, home with one
of the peacocks raised by Miss O’Connor and her
mother. She donated several birds to the Monastery of
the Holy Spirit in Conyers.
BOB
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■BULLETIN REVIEW-
4 The Sound of Music’
BY MICHAEL MOTES
“The Sound of Music” seems to be the logical offering for the small theatre in
Helen, Georgia’s version of an Alpine village situated in the mountains of White
County.
Director Michael Hall picked a winner with the Rodgers and Hammerstein favorite
and the cast he has assembled to transport the audience to postwar Austria is superb.
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Taking top honors is Paige
O’Hara as Maria, the
postulant who can’t quite
observe the rules of the
religious order she hopes to
enter.
Sent as governess to the
children of Baron Georg von
Trapp, Marie transforms the
military atmosphere of the
Trapp villa into one of
warmth and love and - mo§t
important - of music.
Miss O’Hara, whose past
musical credits include major
roles in stock productions of
“Funny Girl,” “Marne,” “The
Music Man,” and “Applause,”
offers a Maria a la Julie
Andrews that is as enjoyable
as any we’ve seen.
The stem von Trapp is
most pleasantly presented by
Robert Helsel, whose “An
Ordinary Couple” duet with
Miss O’Hara and “Edelweiss”
solo demonstrate excellent
vocal control.
The first thought one
might have when entering the
theatre is how will such a
small area accommodate a
herd of romping children, but
the problem is solved by
using the theatre’s aisle for
much of the action.
There is no disappointment
with the singing von Trapp
children. Favorites “Do Re
Mi” and “My Favorite
Things” are warmly received
by the audience.
One of the show’s
highlights is “Sixteen Going
on Seventeen” as rendered by
John Byrne and Laurie
Stoddard. The lack of space is
noticeable only by Byrne’s
enthusiasm and need for
more room to dance about.
Phil Willis offers the show’s
flawless piano accompani
ment.
Actually, there is nothing
about the production that
would hinder the highest
recommendation. It will play
through September 1 with
performances Tuesday
through Sunday evenings at 8
and Saturday and Sunday
matinees at 2:30 p.m. All
seating is reserved ($4 for
adults, $2 for students) and
reservations may be made by
writing Theatre Helen, Box
148, Helen, Georgia 30545,
or by telephoning (404)
878-2426.
To make the most of a visit
to Helen for “The Sound of
Music,” arrive in time to have
dinner (served until 7:30)
before the show at The
Mynah Bird, Chi and Bob
Crittenden’s delightful
restaurant offering a variety
of dishes from Chi’s native
Vietnam.
The Wurst House, featuring
German fare, is a nice place
for late dinner or cheese and
wine following the show.
Excellent hotel
accommodations are available
at the Helendorf Inn,
operated by the Richard
Gays, parishioners of St.
Mark’s in Clarkesville. Rooms
feature complete kitchen
facilities and patios or
balconies overlooking the
roaring Chattachoochee River
in the Inn’s backyard.
Reservations at the Helendorf
may be made by calling (404)
878-2271.
At Random
“CELEBRATE LIFE,” a
contemporary musical drama
based on the life of Christ,
will be presented at 4 p.m. on
Sunday, August 25, at Sacred
Heart Church, 335 Ivy Street
by the Druid Hills Baptist
Church Youth Choir.
Gene Martin will direct the
60-voice ensemble in the
Buryi Red work. The public
is invited.
THE PLAYHOUSE, the
area’s newest theater located
at 595 Atlanta Street in
Roswell, will raise its curtain
for the first time on
September 11 with a double
bill of one acts plays; W.W.
Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw”
and Albee’s “The Zoo
Story.”
Owner-producers Donald
Shillman and Ronald Prather
currently plan to offer
productions Wednesday
through Saturday evenings at
8:15 p.m.
Additional information
may be obtained by
telephoning The Playhouse at
993-4657.
DANA IVEY has replaced
Laura Whyte as co-star in
Edward Albee’s “Everything
in the Garden” at the Druid
Cellar Theatre in Toco Hills
Shopping Center. Dinner is
served beginning at 7 p.m.
with curtain at 8.
THE BARN DINNER
THEATRE in Marietta is
currently offering Neil
Simon’s “Prisoner of Second
Avenue.” The production
runs through September 1
and reservations may be made
by calling 436-6262.
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One is likely to find her message rather intimidating. Like the
Old Testament Prophets, Flannery O’Connor has little patience
with half-truths. “The Comforts of Home” and “The River,” for
example, expose a plastic ticky-tacky culture that makes
growing up in America a rather absurd experience. They suggest
that the platitudes of social science are no substitute for love (or
hate). Bevel, the young boy in “The River,” chooses death by
drowning, in the country, rather than life among zombie
apartment-dwellers, in the city.
Flannery O’Connor is a great comic writer whose satiric gifts
are reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh or Jonathan Swift. Although
her stories often carry a religious message, they are never
conventionally religious. She never exploits a Christian theme or
image in order to prop them up. Some readers feel, in fact, that
too much has been made of her Catholic background and beliefs
and that an overemphasis on them has severely interfered with a
full appreciation of her message.
Whatever one’s interpretation of the stories, he is not likely
to forget them, living with their knowledge as one lives with a
knowledge of evil or of sanctity, an experience so deep that it
gives life a different direction. The sheer joy of remembering
that someone once lived to write these stories is enough to keep
a person going in the midst of confusion. In Thomas Merton’s
words, “I write her name with honor, for all the truth and all
the craft with which she shows man’s fall and his dishonor.”
One must envy those readers who can look forward to the
pleasure of discovering her stories for the first time.
In a relatively short life (she died at 39), Flannery O’Connor
wrote several stories that will live as long as American literature.
They are witty, shocking, and moving tales that suggest a depth
of faith and an understanding of human tragedy that one
seldom finds in American fiction.
Flannery O’Connor explained her violence of expression and
form in this way: “Writers who do believe in religious realities
and propose to get them across have to cope with a deaf, dumb,
and blind reader; and the grotesque may be one of our desperate
answers.”
Caroline Gordon has said that O’Connor’s stories “are all
about the operations of supernatural grace in the lives of natural
men and women.” But they are about other things, too. They
including Allen Tate, Katherine Anne Porter, and Robert
Lowell, from the time they first appeared. She received the
Kenyon Review Fellowship in 1955, a National Academy of
Arts and Letters Grant in 1957, a Ford Foundation Fellowship
in 1959, as well as the O. Henry Award in 1954, 1955, 1957,
and 1963. The Collected Stories (Farrar, Straux, and Giroux,
1973), post-humously published and now available in a
handsome paperback edition, have been widely praised and
honored.
RELIGIOUS VISION
An early and frequently reprinted story, “A Good Man is
Hard to Find,” suggests the stark religious vision that
characterizes much of her work. The central character is a
convict known as the Misfit. A vigorous man, he finds the world
empty of meaning, with so-called Christians denying Christ’s
message at every turn, and he decides quite consciously to
dedicate his life to meanness. After killing a number of people,
including the children and grandchildren of the Grandmother,
the other principal character in the story, he ridicules her when
she calls out to her dead son, Baily Boy: “Jesus was the only
One that ever raised the dead,” the Misfit says, “and He
shouldn’t have done it.”
“He thown (sic) everything off balance. If He did what He
said, then it’s nothing for you to do but thow away everything
and follow Him and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do
but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can -
by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some
other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”
|te; # |
- ■
THEATRE HELEN, which will continue to offer
eight performances a week through September 1 of |
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” is
typical of the European style architecture in Georgia’s
Alpine Village.
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