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PAGE 6—The Georgia Bulletin, August 22,1974 Duncan Clinic aj 'At/iiwpracUc Office Hours: Monday Wednesday Friday 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. 2:30 P.M. to 6:30 P.M. Tuesday & Saturday 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. 1961 North Druid Hills Road, N.E. Phone No. 633-1869 Atlanta, lia. 30319 Sandy Springs Chapel Funeral Directors A Personalized.Service For All Faiths 136 Mt. Vernon Flwy., N.E. 255-8511 589 I'dKRI ST RD. N.l . ATLANTA 12. GA. PLUMBING REPAIRS BATHS ADDED HOT WATER HEATERS OR REMODELED </bzcatuz Plumbing jSexcLcz 412 CHURCH ST DECATUR. GEORGIA RELIABLE - EFFICIENT 373-4981 .sVX-********* ROSWELL MART, INC. 10400 Alpharetta Rd. 993-6001 Roswell. Ga. FURNITURE SAVINGS-NAME BRANDS Discount Prices Jim Ellis Volkswagen Sales — Service - Parts Call 458-6811 Body Shop — New & Used Cars 5855 Peachfree Industrial Blvd. Chamblee, Ga. .WWVWWWVWUVVWSWM fr. ' ' ** V ' o' • Golf "'land mbk—• MOTOR LODGE (Instruction Available) PAR 3 GOLF Next Door To Golfland Motor Lodge (Take The Chamblee- Tucker Exit) 1/2 Price For Guests Sfe&cco-ud Solid (^omffttt Each room has color TV, Radio and Music Wall-to-Wall carpeting. . .separate dressing room Tub 'n ’ shower bath with shower doors. . .and telephone connection in bath room Percale sheets and pillow cases Self dialing phone Reasonable Prices (Soil dlcmd MOTOR LODGE Children Under 12 No Charge One Exit N. Of St. Pius 3701 Northeast Expressway Doraville. Georgia 30340 (Suburban Atlanta) 404 451-4811 SWWAV Taurus Authorized Porsche/Audi PORSCHE-AUDI Dealer 500 W. Peachtree l - A 577-8500 ssshttjsihk 6©od news for people who art ^ tired of being pushed around. The Audi has frest-wtoel drive. ■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 GREEK B-G Qpiicim LENOX PEACHTREE BUILDING 3379 P«achtree Rd., N.E. Phone 237-2608 ■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. I# ^ PR E 5 C 81 PTt0($ , '•*33 Ponce de Leon at Highland TR. 6-0381 OPEN ALL NIGHT KKSTAl RAN! I RAM A1S Lunch Mon.-Fri. 11:50-2:30 Dinner Mon.-Sat. 6-11:30 Entertainment Nightly In The LEFT BANK LOUNGE 10 P.M. to 4 A.M. playing for your listening and dancing pleasure in the Left Bank Lounge Reservations recommended and honored Banquet Facilities Available A 237-9225 m 3033 Peachtree Rpad Atlanta Georgia 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. METRO ROOFING & GUTTER CO. Free Estimates 469-0902 B.M. Mann Owner Normally One Day Service i (sui TV REPAIRS OVER 25 YEARS SERVICING TELEVISION SETS INTRODUCTORY OFFER WITH THIS COUPON AD SERVICE CALLS 'A PRICE Home Calls Reg S12 00 Special *6.00 ANTENNA SERVICE A SPECIALTY MOON’S T.V. SERVICE 2506 N. OECATUR RD. Phono 633-2097 Empire Suite Dinner Theatre all new second Wits'End Revue Five nights a week, they regale you with their own inimitable brand of satire arid musical comedy. Enjoy Atlanta’s best Buffet Dinner (21 items! starting at 7pm, followed at °pm by a hilarious new Wits’ End revue. Dinner and show only $9.50 per person, plus tax. 1 wo performances Fridays and Sat urdays. Buffet Dinner Show. And 1 ate Show at 1 1:15p.m. - only S2.75 per person, enter tainment charge. No shows Sunday or Mon day. Reduced Group Rates Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Free parking on premises. For reservations, call 8°2-2227. Sheralon-Bikmare Hotel West Peachtree Street. Phone: 881-9500 Sheraton Hotels and Motor Inns. A Worldwide Service of tTT 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. RBM MOTORS FACTORY AUTHORIZED VOLKSWAGEN dealer m N. Expressway, Griffin, Ga. 228-2771