Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (FSG Classics)

Excellent book. Bought it for a class and it arrived in good condition and served me well.

For me, Flannery O'Connor is a late-in-life discovery - and revelation. MYSTERY AND MANNERS is a collection of her occasional prose, as edited by her good friends Sally and Robert Fitzgerald. It consists of 1) articles and essays O'Connor published in her lifetime, and 2) material from her papers (many being typescripts for lectures) that were never published. Among other things, the collection demonstrates that O'Connor was almost as distinguished and inimitable a writer of essays as she was of fiction.The first piece in the volume, "The King of the Birds", is sui generis. It is a paean to peacocks, of which O'Connor kept as many as forty on the farm on which she spent the last years of her life. "Many people, I have found, are congenitally unable to appreciate the sight of a peacock. Once or twice I have been asked what the peacock is `good for'--a question which gets no answer from me because it deserves none." That essay originally appeared in "Holiday" magazine in September 1961, a magazine my parents subscribed to and I as a boy religiously paged through, which probably explains why I had a faint sense of déjà vu when reading it. It must have been among the best pieces "Holiday" every published. It is exceptional.The remaining essays all deal with, in one way or another, literature and the craft of writing. Many of them are excellent. Several of them probably would be of great interest, even assistance, to prospective or struggling writers. But they also are of interest for readers and students of literature, especially since most are written in a very readable fashion. In these pieces, one finds such gems as these:"I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.""All novelists are fundamentally seekers and describers of the real, but the realism of each novelist will depend on his view of the ultimate reaches of reality.""The meaning of a story has to be embodied in it, has to be made concrete in it. A story is a 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. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story."In some of the essays, O'Connor comments on her own works, and of course those comments are valuable to the student or fan of her fiction. One such comment: "Much of my fiction takes its character from a reasonable use of the unreasonable, though the reasonableness of my use of it may not always be apparent. The assumptions that underlie this use of it, however, are those of the central Christian mysteries."That quote points to another theme of these essays, and the overt, central theme of four of them: Roman Catholicism and the writing of fiction. Flannery O'Connor was a devout Roman Catholic and a very thoughtful amateur theologian. I only skimmed the four essays dedicated to this theme, as it is a subject of little interest or meaning to me. But it is somehow touching to see a person as intelligent as she laboring so mightily with her concerns.At two points in the book, O'Connor divides fiction into the categories of the good, the bad, and the indifferent. For me, these pieces divide into the good and the indifferent. I should also mention that as fine as most of the pieces are, O'Connor's voice and style vary little from piece to piece, leading to some wearisomeness if more than three are read in one sitting.

My writing mentor recommended this book to me, as I often struggle with being a "good" person who writes "dark" material. I found it to be extremely helpful. Ms. O'Connor's grasp of writing what others call "grotesque" is, to me, a beautiful representation of the reality of human nature: not one of us is either all good or all bad, but rather a confused combination of both.This book is a great read into Ms. O'Connor's writings and essays, as well as a good manual for how to grasp your inner writer and plow headfirst into the mystery of the human spirit.Mystery and Manners has helped me set aside my own notions of grace and mercy and justice and instead embrace a bigger God who is present even in the "grotesque" .I believe the lessons I've learned from this book will continue to make me a better writer.

The unedited script made it hard to read but my purpose for purchasing the book was to read her books as Southerner which I am and always enjoy. It was more of a dissection and analysis of writing style thus emparted value

This book is a gem. Chapter three; The Nature and Aim of Fiction; Writing Short Stories; and On Her Own Work; should be a part of the syllabus for every writing class. Moreover, it should be a part of every American students course of study.O'Conner's clarity in expressing her understanding about the writer's place in the world and fiction as an instrument to convert pencil lead to gold while embracing her own reserve is presented with such humor and grace as to be transcendent.There are few writers, Chandler is one, who have had such influence from such a small body of work that we can only marvel at the wonderful gift of what they did write and morn our loss that there is no more.

In mordant and insightful prose, Ms. O'Connor nails both the mood of the Southern writer and the story they want to tell. Her emphasis on "manners" underscores the timeless mores of the Southern culture. Ms. O'Connors' insights into the hypocrisy of conventional Protestant religious observance and her comparison with her own intense devotion to her Catholicism leads us to her admiration for the Pentacostal approach to "true" Christianity. I have become a great fan of both her and her works, gruesome that they may be: they tell a story of salvation that is available to everyone. Read everything she has written. You will discover a truly insightful writer who is not afraid to address eternal issues.

When I first read some of Flannery O'Connor's short stories I was baffled and a little disturbed by them. This book helps the reader to gain a deeper appreciation of O'Connor's craft, of her use of the grotesque, and how she exercises her art. To read O'Connor merely on the surface is to do it all wrong. There are many levels on which she is writing and on which she can be read. These essays not only serve as a guide for those seeking to understand O'Connor and her art, but in a more general way they serve for all readers and writers alike, by providing insights on the craft of writing.

MYSTERY AND MANNERS is a discourse on writings in which the great O'Connor reveals to the reader the grand purpose of her prose. The transcendent is heaven, that which is unseen and mysterious. History is moving towards the goal of being with God in heaven, but life is lived out on the level of the mundane (manners). The intersection of the two centers each and every story that O'Connor ever wrote. Relentless in her eschatological drive, beautiful in her style, sharp with her wit,this is a feast of intellectual and artistic delight. There is nothing quite like reading Flannery O'Connor, and this is a good place to start.

Flannery O'Connor shares her thoughts on the art of writing. It is possible she did not write them down for publication and the resulting book owes much to the devoted efforts of Sally and Robert Fitzgerald who have compiled and edited her writings into some sort of coherent order. Flannery O'Connor has strong ideas on what makes a good writing and a good writer. Most of what she says is reasonable but many will disagree with some of her generalisations. For example she believes it's better to be a 'good writer' with limited commercial success than a 'bad writer' whose books sell by the million, and she rues the success of these 'bad writers' as they may encourage her students to write badly. Some of her advice is sensible and practical - she advises young writers to concentrate on people and not ideas - if you get your characters right, the rest will fall into place. There's an interesting chapter on being a Roman Catholic and a writer - can a religious person be a decent author, she asks, or will all their writings be filtered through the dogma of the church? Flannery mentions that Graham Greene was a successful Catholic author - and she herself was a Catholic - but she doesn't mention many others. She argues that a religious person can be a good author but they have to remember that they aren't preaching to a fallen world. My main criticism of this book is that Flannery's style lacks clarity and one has to search hard for useful advice. This perhaps was because she didn't edit the final manuscript herself. The other problem for English readers is that a lot of her comments relate more to writers in the southern states of the USA that to writers in the rest of the world.This book is a useful resource for anyone learning to write, but there are other books which are more lucid and where sound advice is easier to find.

You can't go wrong with O'Connor.

Good product and service

This is a brilliant compilation of essays by the witty and incisive Flannery O'Connor. Reading her essays on writing are truly insightful for anyone interested in this process.

A good book.