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Flannery O'connor An
Flannery O'Connor was only the second twentieth-century writer (after William Faulkner) to have her work collected for the Library of America, the definitive edition of American authors. Fifty years after her death, O'Connor's fiction still retains its original power and pertinence. For those who know nothing of O'Connor and her work, this study by Ralph C. Wood offers one of the finest introductions available. For those looking to deepen their appreciation of this literary icon, it breaks important new ground.
Unique to Wood's approach is his concern to show how O'Connor's stories, novels, and essays impinge on America's cultural and ecclesial condition. He uses O'Connor's work as a window onto its own regional and religious ethos. Indeed, he argues here that O'Connor's fiction has lasting, even universal, significance precisely because it is rooted in the confessional witness of her Roman Catholicism and in the Christ-haunted character of the American South.
According to Wood, it is this O'Connor -- the believer and the Southerner -- who helps us at once to confront the hardest cultural questions and to propose the profoundest religious answers to them. His book is thus far more than a critical analysis of O'Connor's writing; in fact, it is principally devoted to cultural and theological criticism by way of O'Connor's searing insights into our time and place.
These are some of the engaging moral and religious questions that Wood the role of religious fundamentalism in American culture and in relation to both Protestant liberalism and Roman Catholicism; the practice of racial slavery and its continuing legacy in the literature and religion of the South; the debate over Southern identity, especially whether it is a culture rooted in ancient or modern values; the place of preaching and the sacraments in secular society and dying Christendom; and the lure of nihilism in contemporary American culture.
Splendidly illuminating both O'Connor herself and the American mind, Wood's Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South will inform and fascinate a wide range of readers, from lovers of literature to those seriously engaged with religious history, cultural analysis, or the American South.
Unique to Wood's approach is his concern to show how O'Connor's stories, novels, and essays impinge on America's cultural and ecclesial condition. He uses O'Connor's work as a window onto its own regional and religious ethos. Indeed, he argues here that O'Connor's fiction has lasting, even universal, significance precisely because it is rooted in the confessional witness of her Roman Catholicism and in the Christ-haunted character of the American South.
According to Wood, it is this O'Connor -- the believer and the Southerner -- who helps us at once to confront the hardest cultural questions and to propose the profoundest religious answers to them. His book is thus far more than a critical analysis of O'Connor's writing; in fact, it is principally devoted to cultural and theological criticism by way of O'Connor's searing insights into our time and place.
These are some of the engaging moral and religious questions that Wood the role of religious fundamentalism in American culture and in relation to both Protestant liberalism and Roman Catholicism; the practice of racial slavery and its continuing legacy in the literature and religion of the South; the debate over Southern identity, especially whether it is a culture rooted in ancient or modern values; the place of preaching and the sacraments in secular society and dying Christendom; and the lure of nihilism in contemporary American culture.
Splendidly illuminating both O'Connor herself and the American mind, Wood's Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South will inform and fascinate a wide range of readers, from lovers of literature to those seriously engaged with religious history, cultural analysis, or the American South.
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First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Ralph C. Wood
21 books34 followersRalph C. Wood is a scholar of theology and English literature whose work focuses on Christian writers, particularly J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Gerard Manley Hopkins, George Herbert, and Dorothy Sayers. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from East Texas State College in 1965 and his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1975. After teaching English at North Park College in Chicago, he held academic posts in religion at Wake Forest University, Samford University, Regent College in Vancouver, and Providence College in Rhode Island. In 1998 he became University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University, where he continues to teach and write. Wood’s publications include The Gospel According to Tolkien and Tolkien among the Moderns. His awards include the Associated Church Press Award of Excellence (2010) and the Lionel Basney Award (2011). He is recognized as one of the most original Tolkien scholars on the religious dimensions of his work.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
November 24, 2009
Delectable literary criticism. Wood not only gives insightful interpretations of O'Connor's key works, but also sets her life and work in historical, theological and regional context. Thus, one learns much about Modernism along the way.
While reading, I spent much of my time musing on whether O'Connor is an exemplary or extraordinary literary figure. Is she a good model for someone who wishes to pursue life as a Christian and artist? I've always thought of her as a person I'd like to emulate. After reading this, I came to the conclusion that while she's a good model in many ways, it would be hard to follow her example for a few reasons:
1- She has a strong, decisive personality few have.
2- Her work responds to Modernism, an age that has passed. While she is certainly a good model in the way she understood her time, reading its best philosophers and theologians, we live in a different time and it would not work well to use the same methods and exact same message today.
3- She spent 15 years preparing for her death after being diagnosed with lupus, and this gave her an unusually focused life.
She is admirable in her disciplined craft, understanding of her age, devotion to God, and overall spunk. But I think to say "I want to be a writer like Flannery O'Connor" (as I've often silently wished) overlooks fundamental differences.
While reading, I spent much of my time musing on whether O'Connor is an exemplary or extraordinary literary figure. Is she a good model for someone who wishes to pursue life as a Christian and artist? I've always thought of her as a person I'd like to emulate. After reading this, I came to the conclusion that while she's a good model in many ways, it would be hard to follow her example for a few reasons:
1- She has a strong, decisive personality few have.
2- Her work responds to Modernism, an age that has passed. While she is certainly a good model in the way she understood her time, reading its best philosophers and theologians, we live in a different time and it would not work well to use the same methods and exact same message today.
3- She spent 15 years preparing for her death after being diagnosed with lupus, and this gave her an unusually focused life.
She is admirable in her disciplined craft, understanding of her age, devotion to God, and overall spunk. But I think to say "I want to be a writer like Flannery O'Connor" (as I've often silently wished) overlooks fundamental differences.
June 25, 2010
This book was worthwhile to me, but perhaps not for the reason that the author intended. I'm not really sure even now the complete point of Ralph Wood's main thesis about Flannery O'Connor. He brings in many writers, theologians, and academics from her time and after. Many I am not familiar with, so comparisons and discussions regarding their influence or thoughts were lost on me. The author discusses southern politics, Catholic theology, and the issue of race within the South among other topics. Somehow there is a connection with Karl Barth, but again I'm not sure why. I looked up more information about Karl Barth, and found out some very interesting things. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bar... especially). Karl Barth was responsible for the Barmen declaration which was a statement of the Confessing Church that opposed the Nazi-supported German-Christian movement in WWII Germany. Karl Barth mailed his signed copy of the Barmen declaration to Hitler himself! He had guts, obviously. However, his link to Flannery O'Connor was lost on me. Perhaps I need to read the book again after doing a bit more reading involving those writers and theologians referenced in the book.
All that aside, however, what was very helpful to me from this book were the excellent discussions about the various short stories and novels that Flannery O'Connor wrote. These to me, were worth the price of the book. As I have mentioned in other books I have read by Flannery O'Connor, I began reading her and not liking either her or her works very much. I am learning that I like her very much as a person, and am now able to see more in her short stories and novels. Ralph Wood's discussions about her works has helped my understanding of them very much.
So I recommend this book, but with a little reservation. It is more academic than I expected, but the information I did gather was really worthwhile.
All that aside, however, what was very helpful to me from this book were the excellent discussions about the various short stories and novels that Flannery O'Connor wrote. These to me, were worth the price of the book. As I have mentioned in other books I have read by Flannery O'Connor, I began reading her and not liking either her or her works very much. I am learning that I like her very much as a person, and am now able to see more in her short stories and novels. Ralph Wood's discussions about her works has helped my understanding of them very much.
So I recommend this book, but with a little reservation. It is more academic than I expected, but the information I did gather was really worthwhile.
Read
August 4, 2011Makes grace gritty. Ralph Wood demonstrated the Christian nature of the South in all its gritty glory. He doesn't pull any punches. For the most part, he deals honestly with racial issues (aside from a few politically correct howlers) and demonstrates how the North has abandoned Christianity at the social level, and the consequences thereto.
I really liked how he (and FOC) used narrative as a means of grace. Some sections of the book were powerful attacks at modern day Calvinist Gnosticism (and I am a Calvinist). The section on the tatoo short story was AWESOME!! He also shows how some Northern infidels like Emerson (my words, not his) refused to take the Eucharist because it demonstrated spiritual reality in a concrete form.
The weakness of the book was the racial section. This section could have easily been written by the antichrists at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Wood is uncomfortable with O'Connor's use of the N word. Well, tough luck. She said the word, didn't see it as contradictory with her Christianity, and was able to affirm the real worth and value of black people in the larger picture.
I really liked how he (and FOC) used narrative as a means of grace. Some sections of the book were powerful attacks at modern day Calvinist Gnosticism (and I am a Calvinist). The section on the tatoo short story was AWESOME!! He also shows how some Northern infidels like Emerson (my words, not his) refused to take the Eucharist because it demonstrated spiritual reality in a concrete form.
The weakness of the book was the racial section. This section could have easily been written by the antichrists at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Wood is uncomfortable with O'Connor's use of the N word. Well, tough luck. She said the word, didn't see it as contradictory with her Christianity, and was able to affirm the real worth and value of black people in the larger picture.
March 23, 2022
Overall, I’d say this book was… pretty good? The problem is that the core thesis feels rather confused. Wood is juggling O’Connor, her work, American history & culture, + several non-American theologians to present well…something? He wants to talk about how the South is “Christ-haunted,” what that means and how it can be a good thing (even if not the best thing). If anything, this book simply raised a lot more questions that I’d like to dig into. I’ve never quite approached the South this way, so I appreciated that (especially as I’ve always struggled to see the good in Southern culture). However, because he covered so much ground, he never seemed able to go in depth on any particular subject, giving it a rather surface-level (though still academic) feel. He also said things like “O’Connor would certainly agree with…” when referencing authors who came after her or whom she simply wasn’t familiar with, and I dunno…that kind of annoyed me. He may be right, but should that be assumed? And if this is really a book about O’Connor, then why talk about people who we can guarantee did not influence her? Perhaps the answer is simply because this book is somehow about O’Connor, the larger South, and, so it seems, Wood’s larger theological views.
March 24, 2014
There's a lot to ponder in this book. Most, but not all, of it I liked. Uses the writings of Flannery O'Connor as a jumping off point to discuss the role of religion both in O'Conner's fiction and in the American South of the mid to late 20th century. The phrase "the Christ Haunted South" comes from O'Conner's observation that the south wasn't Christ centered but Christ haunted. That's a good line (and probably accurate) and the book is full of observations like that. I read it on kindle and I think I highlighted more passages than in anything I've read in a long while.
A couple of caveats. First, the book presumes a pretty thorough knowledge of O'Connor's works. Considering that in her life she only wrote two novels and a couple of short story collections, that's not an impossible requirement but you shouldn't read this book if you haven't read all her stuff. Second, it's not a quick or easy read. Dry academic tone and tons of footnotes.
But those caveats aside, if you're a fan of Flannery O'Connor and you're interested in theology, I'd recommend this book highly.
A couple of caveats. First, the book presumes a pretty thorough knowledge of O'Connor's works. Considering that in her life she only wrote two novels and a couple of short story collections, that's not an impossible requirement but you shouldn't read this book if you haven't read all her stuff. Second, it's not a quick or easy read. Dry academic tone and tons of footnotes.
But those caveats aside, if you're a fan of Flannery O'Connor and you're interested in theology, I'd recommend this book highly.
August 1, 2020
Professor Ralph Wood was perhaps uniquely qualified and motivated to write this book, which interprets Flannery O’Connor’s novels and stories from both literary and religious perspectives. From a 2009 PBS interview, in his own words:
“I had the great good fortune of going to a small Texas university called East Texas State College, and there I had the extraordinarily great gift of having had a Roman Catholic major professor in English, and he taught us all the great literary texts of both the American and English traditions. But during my senior year of 1962-1963, he brought Flannery O’Connor to our campus, her only Texas visit—1962. She would die two years later in 1964 of lupus at the age of 39. And in those days every single undergraduate at this little college was required to read A Good Man is Hard to Find, that collection of her first short stories from 1955, and I was just overwhelmed. I was struck by something really strange, something really odd, something also very hilariously funny, and something that took my own world of rural east Texas, small-town east Texas, not sophisticated, not cultured, but turned it into art of the greatest, highest kind. But it was also very deeply Christian, comic-Christian and southern in ways that in some sense defined me, and I said to myself, if I can spend the rest of my life trying to fathom a writer like Flannery O’Connor and other writers like her, I’d have my calling, and that’s how it’s turned out to be, thanks to this one professor at this one small state school.”
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionande...
Dr. Wood’s book is a rewarding but difficult read. It is somewhat inaccessible without good knowledge of literature and religion. A prerequisite is familiarity with O’Connor’s novels and stories; he has unique interpretations of them; for example, the grandmother vis a vis the misfit in AGMIHTF. Wood wraps O’Connor’s fiction in her religious beliefs as influenced by her persona and life story and the influences of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, Teilhard de Chardin, and others. His elaborate footnotes helped fill in my knowledge gaps but made it hard to stay on track of the discussion points. And his elevated vocabulary had me pausing to look up words like chthonic, sclerotic, scrofulous,… and refresh myself on Eros, Thantos,…
I highly recommend reading the above-cited PBS interview; it is informative, and makes me wish I was one of Dr. Wood’s students. And makes me want to re-read all of O’Connor’s fiction and letters.
“I had the great good fortune of going to a small Texas university called East Texas State College, and there I had the extraordinarily great gift of having had a Roman Catholic major professor in English, and he taught us all the great literary texts of both the American and English traditions. But during my senior year of 1962-1963, he brought Flannery O’Connor to our campus, her only Texas visit—1962. She would die two years later in 1964 of lupus at the age of 39. And in those days every single undergraduate at this little college was required to read A Good Man is Hard to Find, that collection of her first short stories from 1955, and I was just overwhelmed. I was struck by something really strange, something really odd, something also very hilariously funny, and something that took my own world of rural east Texas, small-town east Texas, not sophisticated, not cultured, but turned it into art of the greatest, highest kind. But it was also very deeply Christian, comic-Christian and southern in ways that in some sense defined me, and I said to myself, if I can spend the rest of my life trying to fathom a writer like Flannery O’Connor and other writers like her, I’d have my calling, and that’s how it’s turned out to be, thanks to this one professor at this one small state school.”
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionande...
Dr. Wood’s book is a rewarding but difficult read. It is somewhat inaccessible without good knowledge of literature and religion. A prerequisite is familiarity with O’Connor’s novels and stories; he has unique interpretations of them; for example, the grandmother vis a vis the misfit in AGMIHTF. Wood wraps O’Connor’s fiction in her religious beliefs as influenced by her persona and life story and the influences of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, Teilhard de Chardin, and others. His elaborate footnotes helped fill in my knowledge gaps but made it hard to stay on track of the discussion points. And his elevated vocabulary had me pausing to look up words like chthonic, sclerotic, scrofulous,… and refresh myself on Eros, Thantos,…
I highly recommend reading the above-cited PBS interview; it is informative, and makes me wish I was one of Dr. Wood’s students. And makes me want to re-read all of O’Connor’s fiction and letters.
April 19, 2018
[3.5 star review] Even if you don't have a fascination with O'Connor, her beliefs, and their intersection with the culture of the South, this book would be worth reading simply to enjoy Wood's clean lines of reasoning and delicious vocabulary. This is more of a theological and academic treatment than most casual readers would enjoy; that being said, anyone who's read a great deal of O'Connor could likely handle this.
August 21, 2022
Loved this deep delve not just into an important American author’s work, but most importantly into a culture often looked down upon or forgotten by a rapidly-modernizing country. I appreciate the author’s opinions even if I don’t agree with all of them— it was a thought-provoking read that I would recommend to anyone interest in Flannery O’Connor’s work or the virtues and vices of the American south.
July 3, 2017
Utterly delightful. A must-have companion to any further study I will undertake of O'Connor's work.
November 2, 2017
A fascinating book, the author is obviously very passionate about O'Connor and has put his soul into these collection of essays.
June 5, 2020
A wonderful Christian approach to O'Connor's works. I wish I would have had this in time to read it and work it into my master's thesis.
June 9, 2020
Excellent! Excellent study on flannery O'Connor's work. Illuminating. I will reference this book often.
July 11, 2010
I was ill prepared for this collection of essays, appearing much like disparate thoughts pursued in great baffling detail. I learned quickly that the focus was not only literate and scholarly, but detailed and multi-faceted. Saying that I was impressed just with the writing is an understatement, and frankly, I was probably expecting someone to raise yet another mildly bizarre theory about O'Connor, God and the South. Each piece is not only a remarkable piece of scholarship in itself, but is well balanced and thoughtful in the extreme.
I did not read this linearly but only after reading Demonic Nihilism: the Chief Moral temptation of Modernity did I begin to admit that this book might be placing pieces of O’Connor’s thoughts together in a learned and articulate way. I finally picked on A Roman Catholic at Home in the Fundamentalist South and was overjoyed that what seemed at first like several different viewpoints really did have a wonderful cohesion to it.
One can, of course, read this without ever having read books like I'll Take My Stand, a tome well known to students of American history for the past half century, but it would make as much sense to read this without having read O'Connor. Indeed this book goes a long way to explain what O'Connor said repeatedly, that the South was Christ-haunted, though not Christ-centered.
Perhaps this haunting is what secularists see all too often in people's lives when they play the hypocrisy card...and maybe, although it makes little difference to the reality of God, it is a rational warning of our own occasional religious sophistry, knowing what zeal should be but falling short of the mark. Though I was at first puzzled by a predominance of H.L Mencken's criticism of the South, and being a Southerner, bristling somewhat under the familiar learned onslaught, Wood uses these criticisms as springboards to provide the subtlety necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff..
Moreover, this book suggests that our country in all its diversity has festering issues with which it has dealt with dishonestly and that O’Connor’s ideas of mutual acceptance and love for one another probably makes the most sense for a real solution. As usual, though these Christian thoughts may be stated in a very few words, it is their application which is the most difficult to employ. Thus this book suggests that is only through our past failures in history that we may hope to become re-dedicated to the sovereign source in our hearts by which we might finally overcome them.
I did not read this linearly but only after reading Demonic Nihilism: the Chief Moral temptation of Modernity did I begin to admit that this book might be placing pieces of O’Connor’s thoughts together in a learned and articulate way. I finally picked on A Roman Catholic at Home in the Fundamentalist South and was overjoyed that what seemed at first like several different viewpoints really did have a wonderful cohesion to it.
One can, of course, read this without ever having read books like I'll Take My Stand, a tome well known to students of American history for the past half century, but it would make as much sense to read this without having read O'Connor. Indeed this book goes a long way to explain what O'Connor said repeatedly, that the South was Christ-haunted, though not Christ-centered.
Perhaps this haunting is what secularists see all too often in people's lives when they play the hypocrisy card...and maybe, although it makes little difference to the reality of God, it is a rational warning of our own occasional religious sophistry, knowing what zeal should be but falling short of the mark. Though I was at first puzzled by a predominance of H.L Mencken's criticism of the South, and being a Southerner, bristling somewhat under the familiar learned onslaught, Wood uses these criticisms as springboards to provide the subtlety necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff..
Moreover, this book suggests that our country in all its diversity has festering issues with which it has dealt with dishonestly and that O’Connor’s ideas of mutual acceptance and love for one another probably makes the most sense for a real solution. As usual, though these Christian thoughts may be stated in a very few words, it is their application which is the most difficult to employ. Thus this book suggests that is only through our past failures in history that we may hope to become re-dedicated to the sovereign source in our hearts by which we might finally overcome them.
February 10, 2014
I am a great fan of Flannery O'Connor and so is Ralph C. Wood; which is what makes his book about her so excellent.
In reading Wood's book about Flannery O'Connor it seems to me imperative to have read O'Connor's works first. He disects Ruby Turpin, Francis Marion Tarwater, Hulga Hopewell and her wooden leg. He understands O'Connor's need to make her characters who they are even though perhaps misunderstood by 'good Christian folk.'
When asked about the meaning of her stories, Flannery O'Connor said that "if she could thus state its significance, there would have been no need for the stories themselves:'A story is s way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.'" At the end of her stories, "The reader is left with a deeper mystery to ponder when the literal mystery has been solved."
O'Connor was a Southerner and yet she was able to see and write about both its virtues and vices. Wood does a great job of explaining all that.
Wood's understands that, "O'Connor could have ended her stories less harshly and more 'happily,' of course, but only if she had been untrue to her characters and their complex motives. Such fudging of dramatic and religious truth makes for the sentimentality that O'Connor so starchily scorned, especially when it was prompted by allegedly Christian concerns."
Wood does a great job of getting to the heart of O'Connor's writing and thereby gets to the heart of Flannery O'Connor, the writer, as well.
In reading Wood's book about Flannery O'Connor it seems to me imperative to have read O'Connor's works first. He disects Ruby Turpin, Francis Marion Tarwater, Hulga Hopewell and her wooden leg. He understands O'Connor's need to make her characters who they are even though perhaps misunderstood by 'good Christian folk.'
When asked about the meaning of her stories, Flannery O'Connor said that "if she could thus state its significance, there would have been no need for the stories themselves:'A story is s way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.'" At the end of her stories, "The reader is left with a deeper mystery to ponder when the literal mystery has been solved."
O'Connor was a Southerner and yet she was able to see and write about both its virtues and vices. Wood does a great job of explaining all that.
Wood's understands that, "O'Connor could have ended her stories less harshly and more 'happily,' of course, but only if she had been untrue to her characters and their complex motives. Such fudging of dramatic and religious truth makes for the sentimentality that O'Connor so starchily scorned, especially when it was prompted by allegedly Christian concerns."
Wood does a great job of getting to the heart of O'Connor's writing and thereby gets to the heart of Flannery O'Connor, the writer, as well.
July 7, 2008
Interesting for its summation of Southern thought about slavery. I'm sure I learned about the defense before, but it always seems so indefensible. Wood points out that the Southern line of thinking was a Marxist one, and one remarkably similar to the reasoning behind the Japanese invasion of China in WWII (the world operates on the basis of hierarchies, and it is the responsibility of those higher to guide/protect the lower).
However, I didn't agree with Wood's analysis of O'Connor's work, especially his thoughts on one of my favorites, "The River." Wood warns against reading O'Connor's religious content too simplistically in the beginning of the book, but I think that's exactly what he does when he paints the old man who tries to prevent "Bevel" from drowning as receiving O'Connor's scorn. I read Bevel's final baptism as much more nuanced than simply "good," and I've always felt a sympathy from O'Connor with the old man who seems to be the middle ground between the babysitter and "Bevel's" parents.
However, I didn't agree with Wood's analysis of O'Connor's work, especially his thoughts on one of my favorites, "The River." Wood warns against reading O'Connor's religious content too simplistically in the beginning of the book, but I think that's exactly what he does when he paints the old man who tries to prevent "Bevel" from drowning as receiving O'Connor's scorn. I read Bevel's final baptism as much more nuanced than simply "good," and I've always felt a sympathy from O'Connor with the old man who seems to be the middle ground between the babysitter and "Bevel's" parents.
July 24, 2013
Thoroughly enjoyable book. Professor Ralph Wood does a tremendous job of describing the world we live in--specifically the South--theologically, politically, and philosophically using the writings and letters of Flannery O'Connor as well as a number of her contemporaries, such as Andrew Lytle, and a variety of theologians, such as Karl Barth.
The book is a bit academic; you probably aren't going to read this at the poolside with kids jumping and running and swimming all around you--especially if you are responsible for their safety! Yet, it is still a worthy read.
Professor Wood goes through a number of O'Connor's stories, novels, and characters to reveal how we can understand the South and our own world through them. He brings great insight to them by comparing them to life and revealing O'Connor's own understanding of them as expressed in her letters. Thankful to have been made aware of this book and have the opportunity to read it.
The book is a bit academic; you probably aren't going to read this at the poolside with kids jumping and running and swimming all around you--especially if you are responsible for their safety! Yet, it is still a worthy read.
Professor Wood goes through a number of O'Connor's stories, novels, and characters to reveal how we can understand the South and our own world through them. He brings great insight to them by comparing them to life and revealing O'Connor's own understanding of them as expressed in her letters. Thankful to have been made aware of this book and have the opportunity to read it.
February 12, 2016
Wood captures the essence of O'Connor's belief that sometimes characters have to written large for us to read. He gets her theology, the Christ-haunted South (evoking that wonderful image in Wiseblood of the ragged figure of Jesus moving from tree to tree in the back of Hazel Motes' mind. I often tell newcomers to the South that if you want to understand Southerners, you have to read O'Connor. Wood's book is nom substitute for her works, of course, but for those new to the South who read her and are dumbstruck, Woods might be just the book to help them through their horror.
November 11, 2014
Wood's book is an excellent resource for understanding Flannery O'Connor and her work, bringing everything into a focus of how O'Connor's faith and worldview permeate her work. At times Wood gets a bit too academic (for me, anyway) and dwells on some aspects of theological thought longer than necessary, but on the whole, this is a fascinating look at one of the South's most important writers and what drove her.
July 8, 2016
If you appreciate the fiction of Flannery O'Connor, this a must read. An insightful yet highly personal reading of the writing of an astonishing (and at times astonishingly troubling...) Catholic writer from the American South, I found myself in steady dialogue with the author. And if you don't know O'Connor's work, dig up her short story "Revelation"!
August 10, 2011
Wood's book is one of the best studies of an author's life and work, but moreover that author's expression of a region and culture--the South and it's religious convictions or lack thereof. A worthy read.
January 21, 2015
A vastly interesting book that is equally about the South and Flannery O'Connor. It seems to be a must have if you really want to understand O'Connor, and for me the insights about the South were just an added bonus.
December 14, 2014
The parts about O'Connor herself and her writing are worthy of five stars, but I am deducting a star because the author spends rather too many pages throughout the book discussing Karl Barth and his theology.
July 3, 2007
As a member of the traditional church who is used to criticisms of evangelical folly, I was fascinated by a biography of this Roman Catholic woman in the very (very) Baptist South.
May 2, 2013
Loved this book. I think Ralph Wood is quickly becoming my favorite theology and literature author.
November 7, 2015
Review coming.
March 12, 2014
It's dense stuff, but extremely rewarding and insightful.
January 1, 2014
Dense but filled with great insight. Points you to many of Flannery's techniques, so also is a great writing resource.
January 12, 2016
One of the best books on FO. A joy to read.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews