C.S. Lewis and Flannery O'Connor

I just finished reading through the volume of Flannery O'Connor's letters, The Habit of Being (which I highly recommend) and discovered, to my delight, that she had read two of Lewis's books. She enjoyed what I think was Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, although she noted that she had gotten no better at praying. She also read Miracles with appreciation and said that it was deceivingly simple, almost requiring her to read every sentence twice.

Has anyone here read any of O'Connor's works? Do you see any kinship between her and Lewis? Granted, they had different backgrounds and wrote in very different genres, but I think there are more similarities than meets the eye.

(For those unfamiliar with her, Flannery O'Connor was a Georgia-born short story writer and novelist. A devout Catholic, she brought her faith into her work in ways intended to shock her secular audience. She wanted readers to realize that Christianity is something real, not a therapeutic solution to the problems of life--an idea she detested. O'Connor suffered from lupus and died of complications from it only about a year after Lewis himself passed away. She was in her late 30s.)

I have not read any Flannery O'Connor. So what do you think would be her best work to start with for a newbie like me?

If she read the Malcolm book she did it just before she died (1964) for the book was published in 1964 after Lewis died.

Benisse said:

I have not read any Flannery O'Connor. So what do you think would be her best work to start with for a newbie like me?

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Her short stories would probably be best--"The Enduring Chill" is a favorite of mine, but "Good Country People" and "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" are also pretty good places to start. She and Lewis shared an interest in showing how the supernatural can invade our lives, but her style was a little more shocking than Lewis's, and so I found it helpful that I read Mystery and Manners, a collection of essays on writing, Christianity, and a few other topics, first. They are wonderful just for their own sake, but they also are a great introduction to her fiction.

@Timmy--I've read the Malcolm book, as well. What were your overall impressions?

I have never read the entire Malcolm book, still on my to-do list. I can tell you what my impression of it is. First it is not a series of personal letters to Malcolm Muggeridge. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge were not that close and at the time Malcolm Muggeridge was not a Christian yet. The subjects covered in the letters would never have interested a non-Christian. The Malcolm in the letters are probably not even a real person. This work of Lewis is probably an unfinished work that is often misinterpreted as just a group of letters that was collected after Lewis' death that was quickly published because they covered a common and interesting subject. But I believe they were kind of a antagonism to his Screwtape Letters. Now Lewis and Malcolm are not two angels talking about the Church (something he felt he could never do), but just two laymen talking about the church. If Lewis had lived longer he would have added a introduction to the series. Lewis did add many personal things about himself and Malcolm in the letters which is just the genius in him to make them seem so real to the reader. It kind of flows from his A Grief Observed book, which is a series of letters written to himself on grief, but here rather than just write a series of essays on the church he made up a Malcolm to make it more personal.

This is pretty much the best thread possible. C.S.L. and Flannery? Yes, please!

"Revelation" is my very favorite of her fiction. I have Mystery & Manners, but have yet to read it other than "The King of the Birds". O'Connor and Lewis are probably my two favorite prose stylists of the 20th century.

I've actually visited Andalusia (her home), which is really lovely. I commend it to any who pass through, or live in, GA.

One similarity discernible in Lewis & O'Connor's writing is the bracing, clear prose. Neither have an ounce of the indistinct or vague in their writing. One always knows just where they stand. I love that about them both.

I had never hear of Flannery O'Connor, and I thought that the Andalusia you were talking about was the one in Spain. I'll have to read at least one of her books. I also looked through the website that Eärendil posted and now I feel like visiting the place. It's a shame she died so young. It made me sad.

I have to admit that I deeply appreciate O'Connor's writing skills (she's masterful), and her personal piety and wisdom, but I have a hard time enjoying her stories. They tend to be such downers, in my opinion. She portrays human depravity and weakness exquisitely, but a steady diet of her work leaves me drained and drab. I can't seem to find even a small glimmer of hope in her work. Maybe it's just me being sentimental, but that's been my experience. Perhaps I need to broaden my exposure and read more of her works.

Eärendil the Mariner said:

I've actually visited Andalusia (her home), which is really lovely. I commend it to any who pass through, or live in, GA.

One similarity discernible in Lewis & O'Connor's writing is the bracing, clear prose. Neither have an ounce of the indistinct or vague in their writing. One always knows just where they stand. I love that about them both.

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That's neat--I didn't realize her home was open for touring.

I think Lewis and O'Connor had fairly similar personalities in some ways--both were introverted, logical, and extremely imaginative. Only O'Connor's imagination was very...unique. C.S. Lewis was more of a stereotypical scholarly type, while O'Connor was anything but stereotypical. I love reading collections of their letters. Both offer a lot a lot of wisdom. Lewis's humor was more restrained than O'Connor's, though. She's screamingly funny, but it's no wonder she often disturbed her mother.

Lewis's writing comes off as a lot more nuanced than O'Connor's, and he seems to have been more sensitive, especially as a child. (I love the story about Flannery O'Connor and her guardian angel. When, at age 8, she was told she had one, she shut herself into a small room and whirled around with her arms outstretched, trying to hit him. Meanwhile, Lewis was off writing about Animal-land.) But they both seem to emphasize the borderline between the supernatural and the natural--something that I think Flannery O'Connor noticed (if I remember her biography correctly) when she read some of his works. Maybe Narnia versus her works isn't a good comparison, but Till We Have Faces seems like it might share themes that appear in some of her stories.

PrinceOfTheWest said:

I have to admit that I deeply appreciate O'Connor's writing skills (she's masterful), and her personal piety and wisdom, but I have a hard time enjoying her stories. They tend to be such downers, in my opinion. She portrays human depravity and weakness exquisitely, but a steady diet of her work leaves me drained and drab. I can't seem to find even a small glimmer of hope in her work. Maybe it's just me being sentimental, but that's been my experience. Perhaps I need to broaden my exposure and read more of her works.

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I sympathize. I think her stories are funny to some people, if you know how to take them. "The Enduring Chill" was the only one so far where I think I really got the humor. I never thought Enoch was very funny in Wise Blood--he's supposed to be the really funny character--but I was also in high school when I read it, so maybe I should give the book a fresh set of eyes. I liked "The River" as well, but it wasn't really intended to be funny. Still, her stories are more upbeat than the Faulkner novel I read a few weeks ago. I haven't read enough Southern fiction from that era to really know whether she's more depressing than average.

I really owe O'Connor a debt for writing Mystery and Manners, though. I loved her for her essays before I ever tried to read her stories. And now for her book of letters (The Habit of Being) as well. She got me really thinking about how to write as a Christian without writing trash.