(no subject)
It's hard to believe that as a Southern, Irish Catholic-ish female I have not read Flannery O'Connor before now. Granted: had I read her in high school I probably would not have appreciated it. This morning I put on a polka dot dress and picked up O'Connor's collected works and turned to A Good Man is Hard to Find, that being the most recognizable title, and I haven't read something that nice in a long time.
"Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady."
She dwells on the banality of a family road trip, a grandmother and her cat and her prim and proper southern attitude about manners; this grandmother tells nice stories about how when she was a young lady, the boy who courted her would give her a watermelon every Saturday with his initials carved in it: E.A.T.; then suddenly it ends with the clean, cold murder of the entire family on the side of a dirt road by The Misfit, whom the grandmother insists has good blood & would never shoot a lady. Turns out his blood is very bad and he would shoot a lady, not out of pleasure but out of pure meanness, because "Jesus thrown everything off balance" by raising the dead.
It's a beautiful encapsulation of all the mystery and darkness and slowness of the South. Pretty old women in bonnets and gloves who talk about Jesus and good blood but have a secret fascination with the abomination and still enjoy a barbecue sandwich. There's something about dry, dark Irish humor that translates very well into Southern Gothic; there are striking similarities between both weary rustic, religious cultures. In any case, I've always known that if/when I were to write a horror story it would take place in the South. So much strangeness festering beneath pearls and polos, mostly involving biblical allusion. I cant wait to read more of this. And I cant help but hope that, should I one day be courted, the gentleman will bring me a watermelon each Saturday. Alas, a good man is hard to find.
"Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady."
She dwells on the banality of a family road trip, a grandmother and her cat and her prim and proper southern attitude about manners; this grandmother tells nice stories about how when she was a young lady, the boy who courted her would give her a watermelon every Saturday with his initials carved in it: E.A.T.; then suddenly it ends with the clean, cold murder of the entire family on the side of a dirt road by The Misfit, whom the grandmother insists has good blood & would never shoot a lady. Turns out his blood is very bad and he would shoot a lady, not out of pleasure but out of pure meanness, because "Jesus thrown everything off balance" by raising the dead.
It's a beautiful encapsulation of all the mystery and darkness and slowness of the South. Pretty old women in bonnets and gloves who talk about Jesus and good blood but have a secret fascination with the abomination and still enjoy a barbecue sandwich. There's something about dry, dark Irish humor that translates very well into Southern Gothic; there are striking similarities between both weary rustic, religious cultures. In any case, I've always known that if/when I were to write a horror story it would take place in the South. So much strangeness festering beneath pearls and polos, mostly involving biblical allusion. I cant wait to read more of this. And I cant help but hope that, should I one day be courted, the gentleman will bring me a watermelon each Saturday. Alas, a good man is hard to find.