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Poczciwi wiejscy ludzie. Opowiadania
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Przedstawione w niniejszym tomie trzy opowiadania Flannery O’Connor są bardzo charakterystyczne dla jej twórczości. Tytuł „Poczciwi wiejscy ludzie” („Good country people”) jest szyderczy. Dwa pierwsze opowiadania ukazują okrucieństwo tych rzekomo poczciwych wiejskich ludzi ze środowiska amerykańskich farmerów na Południu Stanów. W „Widoku na las” („A view of the woods”) niepohamowany charakter, który cechuje zarówno dziadka, bohatera opowiadania, jak i jego ukochaną wnuczkę, jest przyczyną zbrodni. Okrutne jest również opowiadanie „Trudno o dobrego człowieka” („A good man is hard to find”), a jego forma, rodzaj groteski, potęguje u czytelnika niesamowite wręcz wrażenie.
Przedstawione w niniejszym tomie trzy opowiadania Flannery O’Connor są bardzo charakterystyczne dla jej twórczości. Tytuł „Poczciwi wiejscy ludzie” („Good country people”) jest szyderczy. Dwa pierwsze opowiadania ukazują okrucieństwo tych rzekomo poczciwych wiejskich ludzi ze środowiska amerykańskich farmerów na Południu Stanów. W „Widoku na las” („A view of the woods”) niepohamowany charakter, który cechuje zarówno dziadka, bohatera opowiadania, jak i jego ukochaną wnuczkę, jest przyczyną zbrodni. Okrutne jest również opowiadanie „Trudno o dobrego człowieka” („A good man is hard to find”), a jego forma, rodzaj groteski, potęguje u czytelnika niesamowite wręcz wrażenie.
127 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1955
14 people are currently reading
1206 people want to read
About the author
Flannery O'Connor
213 books5,290 followersCritics note novels
Wise Blood
(1952) and
The Violent Bear It Away
(1960) and short stories, collected in such works as
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
(1955), of American writer Mary Flannery O'Connor for their explorations of religious faith and a spare literary style.
The Georgia state college for women educated O’Connor, who then studied writing at the Iowa writers' workshop and wrote much of Wise Blood at the colony of artists at Yaddo in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on Andalusia, ancestral farm of her family outside Milledgeville, Georgia.
O’Connor wrote Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). When she died at the age of 39 years, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.
Survivors published her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the national book award for that year. Survivors published her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988, the Library of America published Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor, the first so honored postwar writer.
People in an online poll in 2009 voted her Complete Stories as the best book to win the national book award in the six-decade history of the contest.
The Georgia state college for women educated O’Connor, who then studied writing at the Iowa writers' workshop and wrote much of Wise Blood at the colony of artists at Yaddo in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on Andalusia, ancestral farm of her family outside Milledgeville, Georgia.
O’Connor wrote Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). When she died at the age of 39 years, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.
Survivors published her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the national book award for that year. Survivors published her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988, the Library of America published Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor, the first so honored postwar writer.
People in an online poll in 2009 voted her Complete Stories as the best book to win the national book award in the six-decade history of the contest.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 233 reviews
April 10, 2021
that feeling when a man who sells bibles, pretending to be christian, does not want to give back your artificial leg
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2025
This is my first O'Connor short story & I don't think it will be my last, even though it featured some very cold cruelty. I thought there was some pretty deep symbolism there about the enjoyment Some men take in a making a woman helpless.
Read here.
https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream...
Read here.
https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream...
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
May 12, 2019
(5/12/2019 note: I originally reviewed this story in 2013 under the then-entry for Good Country People, but the mystic fog of time passing in Goodreads means that this review became attached to The Complete Stories which I do not own, so here is the review under the correct (for now) entry.)
"Mrs. Hopewell said, squinting...'He was so simple...but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple.' Mrs. Freeman's gaze drove forward and just touched him before he disappeared under the hill...'Some can't be that simple,' she said. 'I know I never could.'"
My deception can out do your deception, my nihilism out does your nihilism. Another classic from Flannery O'Connor that examines how people's certain spiritual corruption can get the better of them in the most unforeseen ways.
As with many of her works the subtle symbolism with the names, the items that are mentioned and the almost breathless shift in tempo of the plot are classic traits of O'Connor now. Without spoiling I am amazed at how this story so cleverly shows how one becomes so viciously wrapped up in their own corruption and pride that they can't see when someone with the same, or in this case, even more corruption (I call it corruption instead of sin or evil because she makes it seem like a virus or sickness as oppose to an emotion or supernatural force).
In this story we run into a false protagonist who is there to show you one possible way of being and getting on in the world and slowly we are introduced to the real protagonist who rejects the false protagonist's way and instead sets out to show how her path is more sensible and she thinks she has her a fresh target except...maybe not.
One thing to note, if not to give too much away, is how the the false protagonist deals with the antagonist and how the actual protagonist makes out. One can really have fun thinking about what is being shown in those interactions.
This story starts off one way and ends...I would recommend you read it for the amazing turnabout that happens.
I read this short story as a part of Literature and the Writing Process
P.S. : After reading Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death I have reread this and have picked up even more things than before.
"Mrs. Hopewell said, squinting...'He was so simple...but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple.' Mrs. Freeman's gaze drove forward and just touched him before he disappeared under the hill...'Some can't be that simple,' she said. 'I know I never could.'"
My deception can out do your deception, my nihilism out does your nihilism. Another classic from Flannery O'Connor that examines how people's certain spiritual corruption can get the better of them in the most unforeseen ways.
As with many of her works the subtle symbolism with the names, the items that are mentioned and the almost breathless shift in tempo of the plot are classic traits of O'Connor now. Without spoiling I am amazed at how this story so cleverly shows how one becomes so viciously wrapped up in their own corruption and pride that they can't see when someone with the same, or in this case, even more corruption (I call it corruption instead of sin or evil because she makes it seem like a virus or sickness as oppose to an emotion or supernatural force).
In this story we run into a false protagonist who is there to show you one possible way of being and getting on in the world and slowly we are introduced to the real protagonist who rejects the false protagonist's way and instead sets out to show how her path is more sensible and she thinks she has her a fresh target except...maybe not.
One thing to note, if not to give too much away, is how the the false protagonist deals with the antagonist and how the actual protagonist makes out. One can really have fun thinking about what is being shown in those interactions.
This story starts off one way and ends...I would recommend you read it for the amazing turnabout that happens.
I read this short story as a part of Literature and the Writing Process
P.S. : After reading Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death I have reread this and have picked up even more things than before.
August 5, 2023
A good reminder to not show random people where your wooden leg unhinges
April 3, 2025
“Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people’s in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack.”
Mrs. Hopewell thinks she has it all figured out, with her favorite sayings, “We all have different ways of doing,” and “it takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round,” and “that’s life!” She thinks she knows good country people when she sees them, but then a Bible salesman comes to call.
I love Flannery O’Connor. She is strange and dark but so revealing, and the best at this sort of fabulous take down.
Mrs. Hopewell thinks she has it all figured out, with her favorite sayings, “We all have different ways of doing,” and “it takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round,” and “that’s life!” She thinks she knows good country people when she sees them, but then a Bible salesman comes to call.
I love Flannery O’Connor. She is strange and dark but so revealing, and the best at this sort of fabulous take down.
Read
April 20, 2020Flannery O'Connor is weird, dark, and just not for me.
December 16, 2021
2 stars
why wont my writing teacher let us read normal books
why wont my writing teacher let us read normal books
October 31, 2021
My favorite story from O’Connor. It’s bleak, grotesque, and utterly hilarious.
March 11, 2024
Education does not necessarily bring along wisdom.
April 14, 2021
pls not her ARTIFICIAL LEG
May 3, 2020
Wtf...
August 19, 2025
This is one I will never forget.
May 30, 2019
Flannery O’Connor - Good Country People
....Her face was almost purple. “You’re a Christian!” she hissed. “You’re a fine Christian! You’re just like them all—say one thing and do another. You’re a perfect Christian, you’re . . .”
I cannot recall a more whimsically grotesque and flamboyantly skillful story. O'Connor's confident in her craft and mastery of content is Napoleonic.
....Her face was almost purple. “You’re a Christian!” she hissed. “You’re a fine Christian! You’re just like them all—say one thing and do another. You’re a perfect Christian, you’re . . .”
I cannot recall a more whimsically grotesque and flamboyantly skillful story. O'Connor's confident in her craft and mastery of content is Napoleonic.
January 20, 2019
I'm not sure whether I really like O'Connor or I just can't get her right!
Didn't enjoy this as I expected!
Didn't enjoy this as I expected!
December 3, 2020
Loved it!
Read
June 17, 2022wow niesamowite Flannery O'Connor napisała opowiadanie o mnie i mojej matce
September 18, 2022
A dark story on why u should trust nobody.
January 25, 2023
nah if someone stole my glasses AND my artificial leg???? i’d be fuming
May 12, 2021
Un cuento muy autobiográfico, donde nos muestra la falta y uso de sentido común, siempre con esos tonos de maldad en las personas. Buenísimo
March 8, 2025
Simple, strange, slightly unsettling surprise.
Second thoughts. It’s funny and was meant to be!
I had forgotten about Flannery’s rather odd-ball sense of humor!
Second thoughts. It’s funny and was meant to be!
I had forgotten about Flannery’s rather odd-ball sense of humor!
April 7, 2025
Some dark shit fr
December 2, 2024
"The girl had taken the Ph.D. in philosophy and this left Mrs. Hopewell at a complete loss. You could say, “My daughter is a nurse,” or “My daughter is a schoolteacher,” or even, “My daughter is a chemical engineer.” You could not say, “My daughter is a philosopher.” That was something that had ended with the Greeks and Romans."
Primeiro da Flannery que li. Exemplifica bem o que eu disse no A Good Man is Hard to Find. O enredo, aqui, é ainda menos importante, e o encaminhamento para o desfecho real só se dará nas últimas páginas. Antes, ela te segura só com a narração, com as metáforas e com o rol de personagens que desfilam no conto. Só para marcar: uma das coisas mais malucas e interessantes que li nesses últimos meses.
A narração abre com o amanhecer numa residência, o despertar da Sra. Hopewell (que tem deficiência visual) e a chegada da senhora Freeman, contratada por ela para ajudar na casa. Ouvira, antes de contratar a mulher, um aviso de que a Freeman era "a mulher mais escandalosa jamais vista", mas naquela manhã já haviam se passado quatros anos desde então e ela não se importava mais com o jeito da mulher.
A Sra. Hopewell, a dona da casa, era uma mulher que com "os olhos de um gélido azul, parecia ter adquirido a cegueira por querer e se mantinha cega por vontade própria". A narração, aqui, é muito mais explicitamente irônica que nos outros contos. É uma terceira pessoa moderna, vai e vem no tempo para apresentar as outras personagens, entra em tais e tais personagens, revela as filhas da Freeman (a ajudante) e suas platitudes; a filha da Hopewell, uma mulher de meia-idade, e seu niilismo por estar vivendo naquele lugar, naquela fazenda, presa com a mãe. (Um niilismo que vai ser desmontado de um jeito que só a Flannery é capaz de fazer)
A ironia do título do conto bate a todo tempo. A filha — Joy —, ainda por cima tem uma perna de prótese por ter levado um tiro quanto tinha dez anos (!). "Eu estou aqui, é assim que eu sou". O mau humor dela é totalmente compatível com a situação, porque é entre aspas forçada a trabalhar no campo, mesmo com uma perna só, ajudando a mãe, no mesmo lugar onde aconteceu o acidente que a fez perder a perna. Tudo isso é um misto de motivos para a sua infelicidade. A ponto de mudar de nome, de Joy (Felicidade) para Hulga, porque queria "o nome mais feio que houvesse em qualquer língua" para combinar com aquilo que ela sentia por dentro.
"Hulga ouvira a Sra. Hopewell dar detalhes daquele acidente, como a perna foi literalmente despedaçada, e como a menina se manteve consciente de tudo"
O narrador vai e volta entre as personagens, conta cenas antigas, e então as narra como se estivessem ocorrendo naquele exato momento, cada vez revelando um pouco mais. Um desses ótimos parágrafos traz a tona o tema do conto ao mesmo tempo que ilustra a ironia e o contraste entre as personagens — é da onde eu tirei a citação da abertura; outros, pintam momentos tão legais de ser ler quanto, ainda que não sejam densos ou impactantes. O fato da Hulga/Joy gostar de ler "e olha[r] para os homens jovens e bonitos como se conseguisse farejar a burrice deles" [prenúncio do final do conto]; a cena da Sra. Hopewell, que depois de abrir aleatoriamente um livro da filha, e ler uma passagem científica sobre o nada (ou o vácuo), "fecha o livro rapidamente e sai correndo do quarto tremendo e suando, como se tivesse apanhado uma febre".
O conto também é uma aula de como fazer boas digressões, como fazer esse movimento narrativo funcionar, porque a gente fica a todo tempo indo e voltando, correm cenas, diálogos, qualidades das personagens são reveladas, a relação entre eles, o status daquele ambiente, enquanto as personagens permanecem na cozinha, papeando ou fazendo um café; você nem sabe, na verdade, qual é a cena principal ou onde ela quer chegar, até o último momento da narrativa. A cena principal se engatilha, mais uma vez, dentro de uma digressão/flashback. A mãe olha para a filha de pé, esperando a água ferver, e se lembra da visita que receberam no dia anterior de um jovem vendedor de bíblias.
Eu não vou entregar tudo, mas aqui há uma quebra, e as personagens agem como mais que personagens, agem com vida. Depois daquele papo repetitivo de vendedor, de falarem bastante sobre o bom povo do campo, sobre como ele tem uma doença terminal e precisa vender aquelas bíblias (que fica claro que a família sabe que é mentira), a Hulga interpela o vendedor no quintal, antes de ir embora, e, surpreendentemente, a distante e triste e apática Hulga, marca de encontrá-lo outra hora. Tanto a gente quanto as outras personagens da casa ficam sem entender.
As cenas seguintes são as mais memoráveis do conto, ela mente a idade pra ele, e os dois personagens estranhíssimos saem andando juntos às dez na noite para se encontrar. Uma mulher de trinta e pouco anos, formada em Filosofia mas vivendo na fazenda da mãe (no sul profundo) e com uma prótese, e um vendedor de bíblias que parece meio mentiroso meio fajuto, que diz também ter o coração fraco e que tem pouco tempo de vida. E... eles se beijam. O primeiro beijo da vida de Hulga.
E não, aqui ainda não é a maior surpresa do conto, nem o beijo nem a reação de Hulga, que também é muito boa: ela beija pela primeira vez e se sente maravilhosamente bem, tentar parecer que aquilo foi uma "experiência trivial", e quando termina o beijo, ela se vira e continua andando na frente dele, que ficara parado, estatelado no meio do caminho, enquanto ela segue como se nada tivesse acontecido "saying nothing, as if such business, for her, were common enough".
E sim, o final consegue ser ainda mais surpreendente que isso, com diálogos do tipo (bateu a preguiça de traduzir, vai no original):
“We are all damned,” she said, “but some of us have taken off our blindfolds and see that there’s nothing to see. It’s a kind of salvation.”
The boy’s astonished eyes looked blankly through the ends of her hair.
“Okay,” he almost whined, “but do you love me or don’tcher?”
Aqui que se encaixava meu comentário antigo: A sequência de estranheza, a revelação da moça é "olha... sinto dizer para você, mas eu tenho trinta anos e me formei em filosofia... tenho muitas extensões..." e o cara, "desculpa amor, a maleta com a biblia fica durante o sexo...", e ele quer uma prova de amor.... quer que ela mostre todos os detalhes da prótese pra ele... e ele fica brincando com a prótese… e o final! o final! Só lendo mesmo.
Acho que gostei ainda mais do conto escrevendo sobre ele aqui. A ironia do título, percebe-se, está tanto na caracterização das personagens, das opiniões batidas e observadas com distância pelo narrador em relação às senhoras, como também pela posição que se coloca a Hulga e a queda dela no fim, junto da revelação de quem (ou o que) é o tal vendedor de bíblias. Contão!
Good Country People — ✲ 4.5/5.0
Conto
Lido no Original.
Trad. livre dos trechos.
Outros Comentários: A Good Man is Hard to Find
August 13, 2025
Currently reading one of her short story collections and just finished this story today, but I loved it so much and think it's so perfectly crafted a story that I wanted to log it separately here just to give it 5 stars.
July 26, 2023
Mi reseña en podcast, comodísimo:
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/112918473
https://go.ivoox.com/rf/112918473
November 22, 2025
it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
November 25, 2025
uhm so this was something?
February 15, 2025
i suddenly have the urge to steal someone’s leg
September 11, 2025
O'Connor jest bezlitosna. Wybitna proza, zacny przekład Marii Skibniewskiej, szkoda jedynie, że ten tomik to tylko trzy teksty. Na szczęście są też inne zbiory.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 233 reviews