Good Things out of Nazareth

by Flannery O'Connor

  * * *

  Sleep deprived, Gordon praises Cheney’s article on Wise Blood. She also resents the comments of famous writers, a practice that made her at times appear small.

  2-10-53

  I am so tired I can’t see straight but I can’t wait to tell you how good I think your review of Flannery’s novel is. Allen thinks it’s fine, too. It’s a long time since I’ve seen so much acute perception united with common sense in a review. Your remarks on Caldwell [Erskine] are marvellous: the best thing anybody has said about him. Your points are all telling, we both thought, and were made tellingly. I don’t blame Flannery for being pleased. I don’t know of any other reviewer who did half as well.

  Faulkner’s remarks on Hemingway seem to strike a new low. Flannery remarked that “he seems to think Hemingway found God in a fish’s eye.” I wonder if he wrote those paragraphs when drunk. They read like it. I fear the Nobel prize has done him little good. Too bad…

  I am making plans to leave this frigid zone on March 15. I am going to Seattle for ten weeks at the U. of Washington as visiting professor.

  Do let us hear from you all again soon.

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO CAROLINE GORDON

  O’Connor distances herself from Brainard Cheney’s article in which he refers to the Christ “myth.” O’Connor also refers to an image of the Church in a book by a Dominican that may have inspired her story “The River.” She also disagrees with a critic who suggests there is a lack of charity among writers.

  MILLEDGEVILLE

  2/22/53

  I am much obliged for Mr. Cheney’s address. I wrote him that I liked the review though I had to admit that I hadn’t thought of the patrolman as the tempter on the mt. top or H. Motes as embodying the Christ “myth.” I leave the word myth to Mrs. Roosevelt anyway. The Fitzgeralds have a friend in the UN who took his eleven year old daughter to one of the sessions one day. He told her to act intelligent and to show that she knew who the people were he introduced her to and to say something to show that she knew. She did very well, he said. He introduced her finally to Mrs. R. and she said, “Oh hello, Mrs. Roosevelt, I always listen to your radio program while I’m waiting for the Lone Ranger.” Which is how I know myth! Maybe its the myth business that [is] keeping him out of the Church.

  I do think with you all that the Cardinal is last person who ought to be giving the world fiction and verse and what I mean by its being the kind of trash we ought to have is that it’s several cuts above Mickey Spillane. I suppose Prudence is all you have to worry about in the order of trash and the Cardinal is very prudent though I think he sins against it in ways he don’t know exists. Anyway, you tell Allen its just as well he doesn’t acquaint himself with the great masters of the novel in the 19th century. That would be exactly your point of too much reading. He would go on fattening the foundlings with even more horrible prose. Somebody was so good as to give me The Foundling when I was sick in the hospital. I was taking big doses of ACTH which prevents concentration, but this wasn’t necessary for that. It was the purest pablum and if I had been fifteen years old, I would have liked it fine.

  My trouble I suppose is the usual Catholic sin of not paying much attention to the Church’s temporal hard times, knowing the gates of hell won’t prevail. I certainly enjoy watching them prevail here and now, or anyway, when they’re prevailing in the Protestant body. Chief Thurn and the Sunshine Evangelistic Party are nothing to laugh at but I would mighty well like to hear the musical paint buckets and see the fourth singing heart in the world. When it gets around to Catholic vulgarity, that is too Business-Pious and being too close to home; hurts too much; hurts too much to write about. I’ve often wondered how JF Powers stands to write about it. It certainly must be a torture and be a strong man. The whole subject sharpens my sympathy for him. The other day I got a “check” for One Hundred Hail Marys on “The Bank of Heaven,” from a nun in a convent in Canada where I had sent a dollar for some mission or other. All made out with a picture of the Christ Child on it in the corner—“President,” and signed by the sister who said the prayers. Now this is worse than the Cardinal’s works. This is bringing it too close to the altar; his is a good distance away. I know the Hail Marys were said in all charity and may save my soul.

  Have you read that history of the Church by a Dominican, Phillip Hughes? He says something to the effect that the Church is like a river and the times like a river bed and when the bed is low, the river is low but still pure.

  I have just finished reading a piece in the Commonweal by a man named Lukac who says there’s no more literary correspondence and that good writers don’t pay any attention to young ones because there’s no more charity among them. This has not been my experience. I think of your detailed letters to me about my book and wonder what makes him so sure of what he says.

  CAROLINE GORDON TO WALKER PERCY

  On Easter Tuesday 1953, Caroline Gordon writes from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she is the Walker Ames lecturer. Viking Press has recognized her brilliance as a teacher of creative writing and has asked her to write a handbook, later published as How to Read a Novel (Viking, 1957). She writes, “One chapter, (thanks partly to you,) will be a comparison of Proust and Gide.”

  In a letter of April 27, 1953, Gordon writes Percy a rambling, judgmental letter. She commends the submission of The Charterhouse to Viking Press. On May 6, 1953, however, the editor, Malcolm Cowley, writes Susan Jenkins, Percy’s agent, that Viking will not publish the novel. Subsequently, in another letter Gordon asks if Percy has cut the length of The Charterhouse for a submission to Regnery Publishing. Regnery, however, would not publish the novel.

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO CAROLINE GORDON

  According to Caroline Gordon, modern fiction’s canonical goalposts shifted with the publication in 1952 of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. The process continued in 1953 when Gordon, living in Rome, scrutinized, often line by line, the stories that would make up O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, published in 1955. The exchange of letters with Gordon shows that O’Connor conceived of A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories as a cycle with a coherent unity that set forth a dramatic exposition of the seven deadly sins modeled on Dante’s Purgatorio.

  MILLEDGEVILLE

  11/8/53

  I enclose my new ending which you can plainly see is a heap better than the other one. That last one was just one more thing attributable to the 7th Deadly Sin, too lazy to do what ought to be done. The view point at the end may not be that of an eagle exactly but it’s at least a buzzard on a very high limb. I have also done away with the word—the not-word—“squinch.” This is very difficult as I have a natural fondness for it.

  Will you please tell Allen [Tate, her husband] that Mr. Ransom [John Crowe, Kenyon Review] decided he wanted to use “A Circle in the Fire,” so it can’t be sent to Encounter. I was quite surprised as I thought he would want the chapter. Anyhow, he thought I ought to work on the story more, said it wasn’t as economical as it ought to be—Mrs. Pritchard talked too much and some other things, so I have written it over and sent it back to him. The speed with which I did this is probably unequaled but I told him he could send it back as many times as he could suffer to. I can’t stand to have them hanging around, over. He thought the chapter was a little complicated, that the reader had to work too hard, but he said he would print it too if I liked. I am afraid to fool with that right now. I rather think it’s all right as it is, and I have to get on with Tarwater even though it kills me.

  My mother has a D.P. [Displaced Person] family along with her regular dairyman and his family. They are becoming Americanized fast. The little boy asked my mother the other day if gold came from Mexico, where did silver come from? My mother didn’t know. He said from under the Lone Ranger.

  It’s getting cold here an
d my peafowl have ruffled necks all the time and step very high. I heard a great commotion out there the other day and went to find that the cock had taken on the entire flock of turkeys—about ninety five. When they would charge him, he would fly straight up and land on the shed roof and look at them a while, then he would descend straight down and scatter them. This would have gone on all afternoon if I hadn’t put a stop to it.

  I’m much obliged for the Fitzgerald’s address. I reckon they decided Siena [Italy] was too cold.

  CAROLINE GORDON TO FLANNERY O’CONNOR

  Writing from the American Academy in Rome, Gordon notes the seminal importance of one of O’Connor’s stories. Gordon was one of the first to recognize the unusual ecumenical appeal of O’Connor’s stories.

  SEPTEMBER FIRST, 1953

  Yesterday I read your story, “The River,” sitting in the little inside court of our hotel on the rue Saints Peres. I am convinced that Lambert Strether once sat on the very chair I was sitting on to read that communication from his formidable fiancee, while Waymwars watched him through the glass. Jack Matthews thinks it was another court, but let us leave that aside for a moment. The point is what a beautiful story you have writte[n]. I had a feeling that it was going to be good from the moment Mrs. Connin took that little boy by the hand, and you sure didn’t let me down. Just as I finished the story, John Prince, a young friend of ours who practically knows every word of Eudora Welty’s “Petrified Man” by heart, came along. “There you are,” says I and he, too, was charmed. As was Ward Dorrance, another friend of ours and a very gifted fiction writer, who is staying at this same hotel. There are so many of these people about that I call them the “saints peres.” I seem to be the only mere. But to get back to your story, or rather, to your work in general. I see even more clearly with this story what you are about. It is original. Nobody else has done anything just like it. And it is something that much needs to be done. I’d sort of like to write something about your work—I’m beginning to feel that I might be able to point out some things about it that other people may not have noticed—and I’d like to review your novel when it comes out. Will you let me know as far ahead of time as you can so I can ask either the Times or the Herald-Tribune to let me have it. I suppose Francis Brown would let me have it. But I gather that he got a lot of indignant letters about my Willa Cather review…

  Allen [Tate, her husband] flew over to England July sixth for some sort of conference at Oxford. I followed by boat, with our impedimenta. We had a fine time at Oxford—I spent most of my time on the river, with the swans. There are five cygnets this year, all still the colour of lead…

  To go back a moment to your own work. I know that it’s nearly always dangerous to say anything about anybody else’s work, and, in a way, dangerous to become too conscious yourself of what you are doing. But I do feel that one reason your work is so original and powerful is that—for the first time that I know of—the Catholic viewpoint is brought to bear (however unobtrusively!) [for] all sectarian country people in America. It is a rich field and you are certainly the one to work it. I do congratulate you most heartily.

  Write and let us know how things go with you. I am wondering whether you made the visit to the Fitzgeralds [Robert and Sally]. We are looking forward to seeing them in October,

  With love,

  CAROLINE GORDON TO WALKER PERCY

  Writing Percy in the fall of 1953 from the American Academy in Rome, Gordon encourages him to keep writing and urges him to come “to Rome, not only for the sake for your enjoyment but also in the course of your apostolate.” The idiom is new in American literary history. Gordon informs Percy that she will send via Percy’s brother, Phinizy, who is visiting Rome, a “fine relic” from “St. Pudenzianas, which to me [Gordon] is the most exciting church in Rome.” Gordon’s sending Percy a sacramental reveals her faith is not abstract but incarnational.

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO CAROLINE GORDON

  Reference is made to a lecture at Georgia State College for Women that O’Connor herself attended. She also mentions prayerful intercession for a philanthropist who made possible a writing fellowship. O’Connor consistently did not judge wealthy persons, realizing that perhaps wealth made possible charity. She also admired the business acumen of her own parents.

  MILLEDGEVILLE

  10 JANUARY 54

  You are certainly right about that story but at least I console myself with the fact that it was written five years ago and I’ve improved some. Right now I am back on the subject of Displaced Persons. Anything to get away from Tarwater; also I decided that I had not exhausted the possibilities in that particular situation so now I am busy displacing Mrs. McIntyre. I am going after it very slowly and hope to send it to you in a few weeks. I have a peacock in this one. I aim to render the highest possible justice to the peacock. Have you ever read anything about the peacock as a symbol for the transfiguration? I don’t know if it appeared as that in medieval paintings or tapestries or what. If you know of anywhere I could read about it or see it I would be obliged to hear.

  Mr. Ransom [John Crowe] has renewed my Kenyon Fellowship which is a great help. How many minutes a day do you suppose I ought to pray for the repose of Mr. Rockerfeller’s soul? I suppose I ought at least to learn how to spell his name—that don’t look right. I sold that story called “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” to Harper’s Bazaar. I object to having them in there because nobody sees them.

  I had a note from Cal [Robert Lowell] who said he was fed up with teaching and wished he lived in a world of illiterates. I thought Brother you may and don’t know it.

  I’m afraid my mother doesn’t think highly of my fiction. Anyway she likes the fact that I do it and her tone is greatly softened by the situation of my being her child. If I was anybody elses I would hate to hear what she’d say about it. Robie [Macauley] says that after his mother read his book, she said, “Is it funny? Chuck said it was funny.” When my mother read mine she took it to bed with her every afternoon for about a week. She would start reading and in about ten minutes, she would be snoring. She always says, “That was very interesting,” when she hands anything back to me.

  Two weeks off I have to give a talk on the novel to the local college—600 girls who don’t know a novel from a hole in the head. I asked the head of the English Department how she wanted me to approach the subject, what they knew and what they were interested in. She says, “I don’t care how you approach it. They don’t know anything and they aren’t interested in anything but personality.” I am going to tell them that Henry James said that the young woman of the future wouldn’t know anything about mystery or manners. Then I am going to tell them that the novel is a celebration of mystery. It’s going to take me a half hour. Afterwards I am promised a Coca Cola in the Student Union. Pray for everybody.

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR TO CAROLINE GORDON

  O’Connor continues to work on individual stories for the collection that would be published in 1955, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories. She recounts tensions between “displaced persons” and an African American on the dairy farm, a conflict that would reappear in “The Displaced Person.” Regina O’Connor, however, unlike the matriarch in the story, exercises charitable authority to resolve issues.

  MILLEDGEVILLE

  8 FEBRUARY 54

  I am fixing up the front of that story. It does read very flat. Miss Caetani wrote me a note asking for the one Mr. Ransom [John Crowe] had and I wrote her a politeness to the effect that he had it and told her I had sent you another but I didn’t think I was finished with it; as I am not. If she likes it, I suppose she can have it when I am through with it but my concern right now is to get them published before Fall so I can have out this collection. I think she only has two issues a year or something; maybe she won’t want it which will suit me just as well. Incidentally, I called her Miss. What
am I supposed to call her? The Mozely T. Sheppard in me objects to calling her anything else. I refuse to be any urbaner than I have to be. Anyway, if she likes it well enough to want the corrected version, would you ask her to let me know and I’ll send it to her.

  It has been on my conscience to send Poor Ritt something. Do you know Poor Ritt? I don’t know why I should call him Poor but he has written me about how much money he has lost on A. D., and of other of his trials. A. D. was something they started at Fordham, or something somebody started at Fordham, anyway it was no good, just terrible in fact, and he has taken it over and is trying to make something of it. Poor Ritt and I remember each other in our prayers but I have never met him. He has a nine year old child that he hasn’t seen in nine years—wife departed and “remarried.” M. Maritain is now a contributing editor, I think, and other people.

  I was thinking about going to see the Fitzgeralds in the spring but my doctor squashed that one. Too much risk, said he. He says I have enough blood to be a Southern girl, I better not be anything else.

  The D.P. and Shot nearly choked each other in the wagon the other day and now my mother is almost afraid to send them to the field together for fear one won’t come back. She gave him a long lecture that night through Alfred, the 12 yr old boy. She kept saying, “You tell your father that he’s a gentleman, that I KNOW he’s a gentleman, and that gentlemen don’t fight with poor negroes like Shot that don’t have any sense.” I think he then told his father in Polish that she said Shot didn’t have any sense. Father agreed. Too much agreement. She knew it hadn’t gone through and started again. “You tell your father that he is, etc.” Finally Alfred admitted he didn’t know what a gentleman was, even in English. She was very successful in communicating with Shot, however. “Now Shot,” she said, “you are very intelligent. You are much too intelligent to fight with a man that we can’t understand very well, now you know you are above this, etc. etc.” He agreed with every word, but said Mr. Matysiak had hit him first.