A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

Somehow, despite being an English teacher, despite loving Southern Gothic writing, despite the fact that I now teach at a Catholic high school (and my extended family is at least somewhat Catholic), despite my love of dark humor and outcasts writing about society, I made it very far into my life without reading a word by Flannery O’Connor. More than forty years, in fact, which meant that I was actually pretty excited to read A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories after not getting to it for so long – and all the more disappointed when I found myself respecting the book a lot, but not particularly enjoying it.Let’s get out of the way: O’Connor absolutely knows how to write her characters and her stories; indeed, over the course of these tales, it’s hard to escape how much she nails the mundane hypocrisies and interactions of Southern towns, or the ways that Christianity infuses so much of life even without explicitly being a part of it. She perfectly captures people’s selfish actions and their cruelties, the perverse moments where they’ll do something mean without even thinking about the ramification; and yes, there’s a dark humor through all of it as she sees human nature through the lens of that nihilistic cruelty so many people are capable of.And yet, as much as I admire her craft, and I respect her ability to write characters, and admit that there’s a dark sense of irony and humor to it all, I found myself struggling to find much to enjoy here. Much as I did with Shirley Jackson’s collection of short stories, I found myself intellectually engaged but often frustrated with the stories themselves, which are often more oblique and “literary” than I find satisfying. (It doesn’t help that the story opens with its best entry, the title story, which does live up to its reputation and then some, but also sets a bar for the rest of the book to live up to, as well as setting expectations about what’s to come that don’t quite fit the other stories in the collection.) For as Gothic and stark as her worldview can be, O’Connor never quite hit my sweet spot of nasty fun that the best stories do (as ever, my go-to example here is Jackson’s “Possibility of Evil,” one of the most flawless stories ever written about small town hypocrisy and the perverse cruelty of people).Is Flannery O’Connor a worthy writer? Oh, heavens, yes; her prose, her mood, her perfect sense of how people act towards each other – all of it absolutely recreates so many interactions I’ve watched in my life, particularly between Southerners of a certain age. But my appreciation never moved from respect and admiration into passion and love, sadly. It’s very good, yes, but it’s not something that I found myself motivated to read more of – and the fault, I know, is in me and not the stories, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

A Good Man is Hard to Find is the first short story collection by Flannery O’Conner. O’Conner became known for her literary contribution to the Southern Gothic genre, and her unusual brand of Christian allegory that incorporated a predominance of “grotesque” characters. A major theme throughout the majority of the works in this collection focus on redemption and the achievement of religious or spiritual “grace” through hardship and violence. The majority of O’Conner’s characters are portrayed as both morally and physically ugly, and very few – if any – are shown in a positive light. This is especially true of women and children, who tend to fare the worst in O’Conner’s fiction. O’Conner does not typically provide characters for the reader to empathize with or “root for,” as her main focus is illustrating the spiritual failings of individuals (and sometimes society as a whole) through the open display of these severe character flaws, often personifying them externally as physical defects (ugliness) or abnormalities (missing limbs).The collection gets its name from the first short story, and it is easy to see why it was chosen to represent (in name) this body of work. A Good Man is Hard to Find is easily one of the collection’s strongest works, following a grandmother and her family’s run-in with an escaped convict self-dubbed The Misfit. The brutality of the story’s gradual conclusion is emotionally jarring (despite its understated delivery) and threatens to stay with the reader permanently. Other stories in the collection that match the intensity and/or excellence of this piece include The River, about a neglected child’s encounter with religion, as well as The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Good Country People, both of which feature missing limbs, traveling con artists, the potential of redemption. Good Country People also includes the fall of a self-proclaimed intellectual, another of O’Conner’s favorite targets.The weakest work of the collection is easily A Temple of the Holy Ghost, which – much like the title itself – abandons O’Conner’s normal allegorical subtext early on and instead launches into bald-faced proselytizing, eschewing the more calculated symbolism and metaphor for which O’Conner is well more known. The Artificial *title omitted because of Amazon’s automatic filters* is almost guilty of the same, as the narrator goes to great lengths to explain the spiritual transformation of the characters at the end, but overall it isn’t enough to ruin the story of a Grandfather and Grandson’s eventful trip into “the city.”A stroke of Good Fortune, A Circle in the Fire, and A Late Encounter with the Enemy, while not at the best of the bunch, are still solid entries that easily display O’Conner’s literary talents, and support her ongoing theme of grotesque characters, while exploring subject matter slightly removed from spiritual grace, including the arrogance of the individual’s perceived control over body (A Stroke of Good Fortune), personal history (A Late Encounter with the Enemy),, nature, and even other people (A Circle in the Fire).Personally, the piece in O’Conner’s collection that I struggled the most with is The Displaced Person. It is an impressive short story in three parts that tackles a multitude of subjects, among them racism, xenophobia, morality, patriotism, control, pride, sloth, and yes, redemption. The story follows a widowed farm owner who takes in an immigrant family from Poland as a working tenant at the bequest of a local priest. All of O’Connor’s trademark elements are present, with all of the major characters driven by character flaws that prevent them from seeing the hypocrisy or illogic in their decision making and world view. However, O’Conner’s handling of the immigrant farm hand, Mr. Guizac, is enough of a departure from O’Conner’s norm to - at the very least – raise some questions. Throughout the other works in this collection, there are rarely any true “innocents” on hand, and even those few characters that could be perceived as innocent, such as young Harry Ashfield in The River, still display character flaws as well as a need or desire for redemption. Mr. Gulzac, however, is never demonstrated to have any outward corruption or deficiencies. Any “flaws” ascribed to Mr. Gulzac are done so through the biased filters of the other characters, and are obviously done so erroneously out of xenophobia, jealousy, fear, or false morality. This is at least partly due to the fact that, unlike the vast majority of major characters in O’Conner’s stories, the narrator never describes any of Mr. Gulzac’s actions from his point of view. Practically all other characters are given at least a brief POV by the narrator, or at the very least have some personal backstory presented as context, but Mr. Gulzac’s own perspective is never truly presented by the narrator. Whenever we see Mr. Gulzac, it is through the eyes of another character, or through the straight-forward impersonal descriptions of the narrator. It is almost as if O’Connor (intentionally or otherwise) makes the geographically displaced Mr. Gulzac a displaced entity in the story, somehow not even belonging in the narrative itself. This emotional distance from the reader mirrors the distance that separates him from other characters, but without the warped prism of bias and prejudice that O’Conner’s other characters exhibit, this distance lends Mr. Gulzac a perception of innocence by omission; other characters reveal their flawed logic and morality through the narrator, but all we are shown of Mr. Gulzac is the hard work and competency that draws the ire and envy of others.This distance from Mr. Gulzac in the story highlights my other problem with The Displaced Person, the story’s ending. O’Conner’s other stories tend to end after the climactic or transformative action occurs, with the redemption or ultimate results left open and undetermined (The River might be the only other exception to this, depending on your own interpretation). The Displaced Person, however, takes the reader beyond the tragic climax of the ending and offers an uncharacteristic denouement that delivers a level of closure. It almost feels as if O’Connor feels compelled to offer up some semblance of justice – a rarity in the O’Connor universe – for the treatment of that rarest of all O’Connor character, the innocent.Of course, these are not major faults in The Displaced Man as they are perceived variations of the collected works, and with the possible exception of A Temple of the Holy Ghost, every story in this collection is powerful enough to stand on its own. If you are unfamiliar with the Southern Gothic genre, this collection of stories is an excellent place to start.

Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories' is a profound exploration of the human condition. O'Connor's unique blend of Southern Gothic and Christian themes creates a stark and unsettling landscape. The stories, while deeply disturbing at times, are a testament to O'Connor's mastery of the short story form. However, the book might not appeal to everyone due to its dark and often violent content. Nonetheless, for those who appreciate thought-provoking literature, this collection is a must-read.

Zis is very gut

アメリカ文学界における、紛うことなき短編の名手だが、日本では殆ど知られていないのが残念だ。ともすれば『暴力的』『グロテスク』『ホラー』と評されるが、決してS・キングのようなものではない。むしろ『奇妙』で『滑稽』で、根底にキリスト教的解釈が流れる味わい深いものだ。オコナーの短編は、『奇妙な』人々の日常が、ある人間やある出来事によって、『滑稽な』までに『非日常』になるというスタイルを取る。それら全ての結末は、苦い。この苦さが『陰惨で『暴力』的と映るのだろうが、それはあまりに表面的すぎる。オコナーの文章は平易でむしろ読みやすい。しかし、行間を読みとる力が要求される。この短編集『善人はなかなかいない』の表題作は、やはりオコナーの真骨頂が発揮された名作のひとつだ。特にラスト２ページは見事に尽きる。凶悪犯に命乞いする老婆が一瞬本物の聖女と化し、犯人も聖女を目の当たりにするが、あまりの畏れ多さに驚き、たじろき、思わず引き金を引いてしまう。凡夫が聖人と化するとき、その身体は滅びなければならない。聖と俗の見事な共演である。他にも『アートフィシャル・ニグロ』など秀作がたくさんある。是非一読を。

This was for my daughter. Her feedback about the book is very good.

フラナリー・オコナーは、作品数は少ないものの非常にインパクトのある興味深い作品を残した作家の一人だと思われ、高い文学的才能が感じられます。ストーリーは、ほとんどフロリダなどアメリカ南部を舞台に繰り広げられます。アメリカ南部の人々、風景、生活、文化が良く伝わってきます。この本には１０篇の短編が収録されており、第１話が本の題名になっています。話の中心になる人物は、たいがい、社会に順応できていないミスフィットや宗教・信条的に偏ったファナティックであり、それらの人物の言動を支える背景や考え方が、リアルに表現されているところが非常に引き込まれるところだと思います。当然、ネイティブを対象にした作品になりますので、日本人がトライする場合、上級レベル（TOEIC 800点程度）の英語力を持ち合わせていないと読み進めるのは少し辛くなると思います。でも、個人的には、お勧めしたい作品の一つです。