[percy-l] Confessions of a Catholic Novelist

desmond desmond at whitman.edu
Mon Jun 22 17:41:25 EDT 2015


On 6/22/2015 11:37 AM, Lauren Stacy Berdy wrote:
> The reader as much as the writer creates the vision in their own mind
> If the process of creation does not happen in the readers mind is not 
> reenacted
> If the subterranean links and connections  do not link
> The work fails
> For this reader Born a Jew Dr Percy wants us alert like one of his hawks
> His words give us a renewal and a resuscitation for our own lives
> Whitman too was religious ( okay a religion not made by a mind) he 
> helped us with our emotional evolution
> Dr Percy adds to that self generating order
> That creative struggle that all great authors ask of Their readers
>
> I read that article twice and I am sorry that he is wresting so with 
> his demons
> catholic or otherwise.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jun 22, 2015, at 12:14 PM, Michael Larson <larsonovic at gmail.com 
> <mailto:larsonovic at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> I so hope the world will take him at his word when Mr. Giraldi denies 
>> being a Catholic. Otherwise, people might mistake his interests and 
>> concerns for those of a real Catholic novelist. As a secular 
>> novelist, Mr. Giraldi seems most interested in how his life has 
>> prepared him to be an /artiste/, his boyhood Catholicism being one of 
>> those preparations: "An upbringing in the Church has, I suspect and 
>> hope, outfitted me well as a storyteller." He likes the instincts 
>> Catholicism gave him--but for the purpose of storytelling and not for 
>> the purpose of apprehending and conforming oneself to the truth. He 
>> even likes there to be a quasi-religious vision to fiction, as long 
>> as it is sufficiently amorphous: "A novel should indeed be a groping 
>> after some form of the metaphysical, a benediction to unseen powers, 
>> the upholding of the /mysterium tremendum/, those insistent inklings 
>> of the numinous."
>>
>> But the Catholic novelist is most interested in objective reality, 
>> and he sees his role as artist to be one of rendering that reality as 
>> well as he can. Obviously some novels (and novelists) are better than 
>> others, but the vision of the Catholic novelist is neither 
>> narcissistic nor subjective (Nor is it proselytizing, as Giraldi 
>> claims with regard to Percy and Greene in particular.). No, the 
>> Catholic novelist's vision is of something outside of himself, 
>> corresponding to divine revelation. His characters may be at any 
>> level of understanding (or rejecting) that reality, but the 
>> (Catholic) novelist himself has no such freedom. He knows what he 
>> knows, and the world he creates, in which his characters live and 
>> breathe, must bear a close resemblance to the real one. But this 
>> includes immaterial as well as material reality. Mr. Giraldi is fine 
>> with being exact about material reality ("my books are 
>> flesh-obsessed"), but he wants to keep the immaterial vague, 
>> subjective, fuzzy. That's why he's not a Catholic ... and why he 
>> should therefore remain silent about the concerns of Catholic writers.
>>
>> Michael Larson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 6:35 AM, <percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org 
>> <mailto:percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org>> wrote:
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>>     Today's Topics:
>>
>>        1. 2016 SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE ON CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE -
>>           Walker Percy Centennial - Call for Papers (Henry Mills)
>>        2. Re: A Good Stamp is Hard to Find (Jonathan Potter)
>>        3. Confessions of A Catholic Novelist: When water, bread, and
>>           blood aren't just water, bread and blood - William Giraldi
>>           (Henry Mills)
>>
>>
>>     ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>     Message: 1
>>     Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2015 09:05:40 -0400
>>     From: Henry Mills <wppdirector at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:wppdirector at gmail.com>>
>>     To: Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org:Literary and Philosophical Discussion
>>             <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org
>>     <mailto:percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>>
>>     Subject: [percy-l] 2016 SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE ON CHRISTIANITY AND
>>             LITERATURE - Walker Percy Centennial - Call for Papers
>>     Message-ID: <557C2AA4.1040800 at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:557C2AA4.1040800 at gmail.com>>
>>     Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>
>>     The following is a Call for Papers Announcement. For more
>>     information,
>>     contact Rich Gray (rgray at montreat.edu <mailto:rgray at montreat.edu>
>>     <mailto:rgray at montreat.edu <mailto:rgray at montreat.edu>>).
>>
>>     **
>>
>>     ***
>>     Walker Percy Centennial:****Pilgrimage in Literature*
>>
>>     2016 SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE ON CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE
>>
>>     *April 7-9, 2016*
>>     Montreat College, Montreat, NC 28757
>>
>>     Keynoters: *Farrell O?Gorman*, Belmont Abbey College
>>
>>     *Jim Wildeman*, Covenant College, emeritus
>>
>>     Like Binx Bolling in Walker Percy?s first novel /The Moviegoer,
>>     /literary characters often seek relationship with the God of the
>>     Bible.
>>     They feel detached from affairs in the material world.  Pilgrims
>>     sense a
>>     call from God to pursue him in spite of the unbelief surrounding
>>     them.
>>     Essays will be considered from a variety of authors. Topics should
>>     pursue the intersection of faith and literature.  Creative writing
>>     presentations are welcome.
>>
>>     Undergraduate Research essays are invited; the Thursday evening
>>     session
>>     is devoted to them.
>>
>>
>>     Please submit completed essays to Rich Gray (rgray at montreat.edu
>>     <mailto:rgray at montreat.edu>
>>     <mailto:rgray at montreat.edu <mailto:rgray at montreat.edu>>)
>>     by January 10, 2016
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>     ------------------------------
>>
>>     Message: 2
>>     Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 09:32:59 -0700
>>     From: Jonathan Potter <jopomojo at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:jopomojo at gmail.com>>
>>     To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
>>             <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org
>>     <mailto:percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>>
>>     Subject: Re: [percy-l] A Good Stamp is Hard to Find
>>     Message-ID:
>>            
>>     <CALpVE-4JnfLF9H9E7RcoovDKxkV8sHWp_gaopxt13C6H_oAXzA at mail.gmail.com
>>     <mailto:CALpVE-4JnfLF9H9E7RcoovDKxkV8sHWp_gaopxt13C6H_oAXzA at mail.gmail.com>>
>>     Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>>     Someone at the Korrektiv blog has created an enhanced version of the
>>     Flannery O'Connor stamp:
>>
>>     http://korrektivpress.com/2015/06/lets-try-that-again/
>>
>>     On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 1:16 PM, Jim Forest <jhforest at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:jhforest at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     >
>>     >
>>     http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/a-good-stamp-is-hard-to-find.html?mabReward=CTM&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action=click&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&configSection=article&isLoggedIn=true&src=recg&pgtype=article
>>     > A Good Stamp Is Hard to Find
>>     >
>>     > By LAWRENCE DOWNES / NY TIMES / JUNE 4, 2015
>>     >  Photo
>>     >   Credit United States Postal Service
>>     >
>>     > English majors, say hooray: Flannery O?Connor is on a postage
>>     stamp. It
>>     > comes out Friday and costs 93 cents.
>>     >
>>     > It?s a pretty picture. She wears a simple top with a jewel
>>     neckline, and
>>     > pearls. Her pink porcelain face, framed in a 1940s bob, glows
>>     with the
>>     > barest hint of a how-do-you-do smile.
>>     >
>>     > Wait ? what?s Betty Crocker doing on Flannery?s stamp?
>>     >
>>     > This stamp does not, to my eyes, show Flannery O?Connor, the
>>     20th-century
>>     > master of the short story, the ?hermit novelist? who fused her
>>     art and life
>>     > as a Southerner and a Roman Catholic with stories that are
>>     shocking,
>>     > hilarious and often bloody. The one who lived with her mother in
>>     > Milledgeville, Ga., and raised peafowl. Who got sick and died
>>     young, of
>>     > lupus, in 1964. Who gazed at the sin-stricken world through
>>     cat-eye glasses
>>     > that are as much her visual signature as Hemingway?s beard or
>>     Frida?s
>>     > eyebrow.
>>     >
>>     > This stamp shows the artist as a very young woman, barely 20
>>     years old.
>>     > It?s based on a photo of her as an undergraduate at Georgia
>>     State College
>>     > for Women. Her oeuvre then amounted to cartoons and stories for
>>     the college
>>     > magazine. Everything else in her dazzling career ? the Iowa
>>     Writers?
>>     > Workshop, the artists? retreat Yaddo, ?Wise Blood,? ?A Good Man
>>     Is Hard to
>>     > Find? ? lay ahead.
>>     > Photo
>>     >   Flannery O'Connor beneath her self portrait in June 1962.
>>     Credit Joe
>>     > McTyre/Atlanta Journal-Constitution
>>     >
>>     > The image has rattled some O?Connor admirers. (Facebook
>>     > <https://www.facebook.com/Andalusiafarmpage>: ?This is all
>>     wrong. They
>>     > glamour-shot her. She looks like she has a bad case of pink eye.? )
>>     >
>>     > The United States Postal Service gave this job to an art
>>     director, who
>>     > hired a freelance artist. I spoke with both of them, and
>>     learned that
>>     > neither knew much about O?Connor, but they did their best with
>>     the images
>>     > they had. The artist told me he had read one of her novels in
>>     college. He
>>     > knew O?Connor had raised peacocks, so he framed her with
>>     feathers. The art
>>     > director remembered that her work was ?unsettling,? and that
>>     she was a
>>     > Catholic.
>>     >
>>     > I can?t blame either of them for deciding on this striking
>>     portrait as the
>>     > best fit for their tiny canvas, but I wish they and the Postal
>>     Service had
>>     > produced a stamp that was more recognizably the grown-up
>>     Flannery, and
>>     > contained some taste of her strange and majestic artistic vision.
>>     >
>>     > I know she does not present an automatic illustrative equation,
>>     like
>>     > mustache + steamboat = Mark Twain. But a better choice was
>>     staring the
>>     > Postal Service in the face: a painting made by the author
>>     herself, a
>>     > self-portrait from 1953. She is wearing a yellow straw hat,
>>     holding a
>>     > devilish-looking pheasant and looking straight at you, baleful and
>>     > brilliant, as if she could smell your stupidity. It is gorgeous
>>     and jagged
>>     > and honest and perfect.
>>     >
>>     > ?The self-portrait was made ten years ago,? O?Connor wrote to a
>>     friend,
>>     > ?after a very acute siege of lupus. I was taking cortisone,
>>     which gives you
>>     > what they call a moon-face, and my hair had fallen out to a
>>     large extent
>>     > from the high fever, so I looked pretty much like the portrait.
>>     When I
>>     > painted it I didn?t look either at myself in the mirror or at
>>     the bird. I
>>     > knew what we both looked like.?
>>     >
>>     > A version of this editorial appears in print on June 5, 2015,
>>     on page A26
>>     > of the New York edition with the headline: A Good Stamp Is Hard
>>     to Find.
>>     > --
>>     > *two new books*:
>>     > *Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment*:
>>     > www.jimandnancyforest.com/2014/07/loving-our-enemies/
>>     <http://www.jimandnancyforest.com/2014/07/loving-our-enemies/>
>>     > *Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins:*
>>     >
>>     www.jimandnancyforest.com/2015/04/saint-nicholas-and-the-nine-gold-coins/
>>     <http://www.jimandnancyforest.com/2015/04/saint-nicholas-and-the-nine-gold-coins/>
>>     >
>>     <http://jimandnancyforest.com/2015/04/saint-nicholas-and-the-nine-gold-coins/>
>>     >
>>     > Jim & Nancy web site: www.jimandnancyforest.com
>>     <http://www.jimandnancyforest.com>
>>     > Photo albums: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/
>>     >
>>     > *Jim & Nancy Forest*
>>     > Kanisstraat 5 / 1811 GJ Alkmaar / The Netherlands
>>     >
>>     > * * *
>>     >
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>>     >
>>     >
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>>     ------------------------------
>>
>>     Message: 3
>>     Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 07:35:28 -0400
>>     From: Henry Mills <wppdirector at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:wppdirector at gmail.com>>
>>     To: Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org:Literary and Philosophical Discussion
>>             <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org
>>     <mailto:percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>>
>>     Subject: [percy-l] Confessions of A Catholic Novelist: When water,
>>             bread, and blood aren't just water, bread and blood -
>>     William Giraldi
>>     Message-ID: <5587F300.6070206 at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:5587F300.6070206 at gmail.com>>
>>     Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>
>>     Dear Percy-L:
>>
>>     For those wishing to read an interesting, if not provocative essay
>>     byWilliam Giraldi -- novelist and contributing editor for /The New
>>     Republic -- /on his views of Catholicism and novel-writing from
>>     hiscontemporary perspective, you may wish to consider his below essay
>>     just published online.
>>
>>     Entitled "Confessions of A Catholic Novelist: When water, bread, and
>>     blood aren't just water, bread and blood," Percy, O'Connor, and
>>     Graham
>>     Greene are each considered and represented in their perspectives with
>>     numerous quotes and discussion by Giraldi.
>>
>>     In addition, given the recent postal stamp "controversy" with
>>     O'Connor,
>>     the essay features a fascinating photograph of her standing with
>>     one of
>>     her peacocks, a photo worth enjoying.
>>
>>     SPOILER ALERT: Giraldi's essay is both affirming and non-affirming of
>>     its treated subjects.  Perhaps some list members would like to
>>     respond
>>     for the benefit of the Percy-L community?
>>
>>     See:
>>     http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122078/confessions-catholic-novelist
>>
>>     Best,
>>
>>     Henry Mills
>>     Percy-L Administrator
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>>     End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 114, Issue 3
>>     ***************************************
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In his reading of The Moviegoer, Mr. Giraldi completely ignores one of 
its most important thematic threads, i.e. Binx's intuition of his 
"Jewishness" as a "clue" to his deepest identity, and where that clue 
leads him in the novel.  Giraldi's simplified interpretation is a 
serious misreading of the novel (for his own purposes, I suppose).

John Desmond
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