Mystery And Manners
Dec. 3rd, 2012 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliMystery And Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor
Somewhat edited to avoid repetition and stuff. Mostly about writing in one way or another, but one's about peacocks.
On writing it covers everything from the articles that complain about how fiction writers were not showing the wonderful prosperity and happiness in America of her day, through the need for concrete detail in fiction -- she even says that fantasy probably needs it more than any other genre -- and the teaching of it in school, where she is uncommonly severe on the notion that it should appeal to the students' taste. It's supposed to form the students' taste. The need for a story to be complete in itself. The gentle art of using your Southern background if you happen to be a Southern writer. On the intersection of being a Catholic and a novelist.
Somewhat edited to avoid repetition and stuff. Mostly about writing in one way or another, but one's about peacocks.
On writing it covers everything from the articles that complain about how fiction writers were not showing the wonderful prosperity and happiness in America of her day, through the need for concrete detail in fiction -- she even says that fantasy probably needs it more than any other genre -- and the teaching of it in school, where she is uncommonly severe on the notion that it should appeal to the students' taste. It's supposed to form the students' taste. The need for a story to be complete in itself. The gentle art of using your Southern background if you happen to be a Southern writer. On the intersection of being a Catholic and a novelist.