Originally Posted March 26, 2015
Every now and then I slip back into my old "Literature Geek" mode and remember what used to make me so excited about American Literature back in the day.
One of those "Giants" of the cannon was Flannery O'Conner, who had a birthday yesterday that totally flew over my head. She was the one who kindled my love of distinctly "Southern" American Literature which continues to be a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine to this day.
O'Conner was one of AmLit's great wits - so to that end, let me step away and let the late, great writer take it from here:
Every now and then I slip back into my old "Literature Geek" mode and remember what used to make me so excited about American Literature back in the day.
One of those "Giants" of the cannon was Flannery O'Conner, who had a birthday yesterday that totally flew over my head. She was the one who kindled my love of distinctly "Southern" American Literature which continues to be a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine to this day.
O'Conner was one of AmLit's great wits - so to that end, let me step away and let the late, great writer take it from here:
- “When we look at a good deal of serious modern fiction, and particularly Southern fiction, we find this quality about it that is generally described, in a pejorative sense, as grotesque. Of course, I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic. [...] Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”
- “Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
- “I’m a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound. You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away. I see it happen all the time. Of course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that’s all the energy I have, but I don’t let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place. This doesn’t mean I produce much out of the two hours. Sometimes I work for months and have to throw everything away, but I don’t think any of that was time wasted. Something goes on that makes it easier when it does come well. And the fact is if you don’t sit there every day, the day it would come well, you won’t be sitting there.”
- “Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
- “I’m a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound. You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away. I see it happen all the time. Of course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do. I write only about two hours every day because that’s all the energy I have, but I don’t let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place. This doesn’t mean I produce much out of the two hours. Sometimes I work for months and have to throw everything away, but I don’t think any of that was time wasted. Something goes on that makes it easier when it does come well. And the fact is if you don’t sit there every day, the day it would come well, you won’t be sitting there.”
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