A Great Quote for Writers

Maybe that's why I'm so glad I never took any writing courses/workshops. The buggering analysis in English lit classes was bad enough. I let my characters complexities grow naturally without pigeonholing their souls.

gnfisher said:

"The serious fiction writer will think that any story that can be entirely explained by the adequate motivation of the characters or by a believable imitation of a way of life or by a proper theology, will not be a large enough story for him to occupy himself with. This is not to say that he doesn’t have to be concerned with adequate motivation or accurate reference or a right theology; he does; but he has to be concerned with them only because the meaning of his story does not begin except at a depth where these things have been exhausted."
--Flannery O’Connor
from a speech, 1957

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Uh...what?

seun said:

Uh...what?

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Ha! I just read O'Connor's Wise Blood and spent the whole time saying that. Except for the times I was quaking from the effort of not throwing the book across the room.

All that said, though, it's wonderful to come across a quote that moves like peace in your mind.

I just got done listening to some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories on CD in my car. This quote reminded me of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's the parts that don't have to be explained (or in this case, can't be) that are the premise of the story a nd it moves liquid-smooth from that point. Even the peculiar motives and emotions are raw and honest and feel deeper than simply true.


On a sidenote, I'm fascinated with Diamond as Big as The Ritz.

I just finished The Violent Bear It Away last night and that sheds light on her message.

Strange book, full of deep conflict, internal and external.

Perks said:

All that said, though, it's wonderful to come across a quote that moves like peace in your mind.

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That quote moves like a migraine in mine.

It didn't work for me, but it made the OP happy, which is pleasant enough.

I rejoice at gnfisher's epiphany and despair at the pain bearing up through your hair-roots and down through your teeth.

See? I care.

scarletpeaches said:

That quote moves like a migraine in mine.

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Beat me to it. I have had to read the thing three times, and damn near diagram that first sentence. I actually love Flannery O'Connor's fiction and fictional writing style. Obviously there she found her calling, and not in clarity of literary analysis.

caw

I get it, Flannery, and I agree. I think the depth she mentions is the same profound ocean wilderness McCormack* writes about as the province of the artist at his most awe-inspiring, where the unchartable intuition takes hold like the jaws of the great whale that just has to be white.

Parse that one.

*Thomas McCormack, The Fiction Editor, the Novel and the Novelist. If you like the OP's O'Connor quote, get this book. If you don't, well, maybe you should look elsewhere.