From honeyjbc at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 11:15:44 2018 From: honeyjbc at gmail.com (honeyjbc1) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2018 11:15:44 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Fwd: The Moviegoer. In-Reply-To: <741947636.427428.1533136475140@mail.yahoo.com> References: <829808690.338474.1533125548179.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <829808690.338474.1533125548179@mail.yahoo.com> <741947636.427428.1533136475140@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Attention all Percy lovers: Jessica Hooten Wilson will be interviewed on a podcast probably available on September 1st. Subject? The Moviegoer! John Miller does these wonderful interviews of scholars who are experts on their subjects and it is all part of a Great Books discussion series under the auspices of Hillsdale college. He is a wonderful questioner and usually the podcasts are exceptional. If anyone has trouble finding the podcast, let me know and I will make sure the List has the link. Can't wait. Janet Cantor -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Fri Aug 10 03:12:18 2018 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2018 03:12:18 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Of Interest: A portrait of Walker Percy by artist Maddie Stratton of Where Y'Art, as commissioned by NOLA.com Message-ID: <19D9F200-765B-460C-9D6C-76AC1840057D@gmail.com> Dear Percy-L: Enjoy this modern art painting of Percy and a rundown of numerous trivia related to him in the August 8 New Orleans The Times-Picayune. All best, Henry Mills Percy-L Administrator https://www.nola.com/300/2018/08/walker_percy_author_the_movieg.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From honeyjbc at gmail.com Fri Aug 10 10:22:15 2018 From: honeyjbc at gmail.com (honeyjbc1) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2018 10:22:15 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Of Interest: A portrait of Walker Percy by artist Maddie Stratton of Where Y'Art, as commissioned by NOLA.com In-Reply-To: <19D9F200-765B-460C-9D6C-76AC1840057D@gmail.com> References: <19D9F200-765B-460C-9D6C-76AC1840057D@gmail.com> Message-ID: Bill Binnings was a friend of Percy. I wonder if he was a friend of his when Percy wrote The Moviegoer. Binx Boling? Janet Cantor On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 3:12 AM Henry P. Mills wrote: > Dear Percy-L: > > Enjoy this modern art painting of Percy and a rundown of numerous trivia > related to him in the August 8 New Orleans The Times-Picayune. > > All best, > Henry Mills > Percy-L Administrator > > https://www.nola.com/300/2018/08/walker_percy_author_the_movieg.html > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > * Manage Your Membership: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhforest at gmail.com Wed Aug 15 05:33:03 2018 From: jhforest at gmail.com (Jim Forest) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2018 11:33:03 +0200 Subject: [percy-l] =?utf-8?q?Flannery_O=E2=80=99Connor_found_her_art?= =?utf-8?b?4oCUYW5kIGhlciBHb2TigJRpbiBsZXR0ZXJz?= Message-ID: www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/08/08/how-flannery-oconnor-found-her-art-and-her-god-lettersFlannery O?Connor found her art?and her God?in letters Angela Alaimo O'Donnell August 08, 2018 Facebook Twitter Email ?Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth?s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that I block the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing. I do not know you God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside.? Flannery O?Connor wrote these words in January of 1946 when she was an MFA student at the Iowa Writers? Workshop. They capture the spiritual agon that she was engaged in as she struggled to discover the connection between her vocation as a writer and her vocation as a Catholic. Found among her papers by scholar William Sessions, a friend of hers, O?Connor?s *A Prayer Journal* was published to great acclaim in 2013 as it gave readers a glimpse into the baptism by fire she endured before emerging as America?s finest Catholic writer of the 20th century. Five years later, *Prayer Journal* continues to appeal to readers who value her work as it teaches us not only about the author, but also about ourselves as people in pursuit of twin vocations, the professional and the spiritual, and the challenges of reconciling the two. I recently revisited the *Prayer Journal* and found it to be as poignant and profound as when I first read it. What strikes me on this reading is the way writing the journal helped O?Connor to grow not only in her faith but also in her art, enabling a fledgling writer to experiment with and discover her literary vocation and voice. Most of the entries in the *Prayer Journal*, beginning in Jan. 1946 and concluding in Sept. 1947, take the form of letters. This is a genre O'Connor would master after she was diagnosed with lupus and exiled to her mother?s farm, Andalusia, in rural Georgia for the last 13 years of her life. During this period letters would become her primary means of communication with the outside world. These mature letters, wherein the full range of O?Connor?s literary gifts are on display, were eventually published as *The Habit of Being, *one of the finest collections of correspondence ever produced by a writer. Letter writing is a genre O'Connor would master after she was diagnosed with lupus and exiled to her mother?s farm. Tweet this O?Connor enjoyed letter-writing from an early age and took some pride in her skill. In an earlier journal O?Connor kept in college, humorously (mis)titled *Higher Mathematics* and recently found among her papers*, *she writes: ?My epistolary powers enthrall me. It is a pity I can?t receive my own letters. If they produce as much whole-hearted approval at their destination as they do at their source, they should indeed be able to keep my memory alive?and healthy? (Jan. 22, 1944). These early letters are, in some ways, apprentice pieces, preparation for the mature letters she would write and also served as practice for her fiction. The epistolary element of the *Prayer Journal*, in particular, provided her with the opportunity to write letters of a different nature from any she had written before. For these are letters to God and, as such, opened up an avenue for communication about matters of the soul, making them more frank and intimate than any she might have penned to ordinary people. The letters functioned in a variety of ways, but for present purposes I would like to focus on three. First, they gave her the chance to explore her most private thoughts and feelings without exposing herself or her work to judgment or censure?something she endured on a regular basis at the Iowa workshop. Unlike her fiction, which she hoped would be read by many people, her letters to God would, like prayer, remain sealed and secret. This gave O?Connor the freedom to address her greatest spiritual challenges and her besetting sins. Among these are the twin torments of fear and desire. As the opening excerpt suggests, one of her primary fears is that of the self and its relentless demands. She also fears the tyranny of her intellect, the loss of her faith and literary and spiritual mediocrity. But more than fear, these letters are the record of desire. O?Connor writes at one point that supplication is the only kind of prayer she is good at. She desires many things, but what she wants most of all is to be a good writer: Dear God, I am so discouraged about my work. . . . Please help me dear God to be a good writer and to get something else accepted. That is so far from what I deserve, of course, that I am naturally struck with the nerve of it. Her desire for literary accomplishment and fame exists in tension with her fear of her own pride and egotism. She knows she is smart and is very much taken with her own intellect. In another letter to God, after making a joke in the midst of her prayer (her sense of humor forever getting the best of her, both in her stories and her letters), she confesses, ?I do not mean to be clever . . . although I *do* mean to be clever on 2nd thought and *like* to be clever and *want *to be considered so.? Though she knows the danger of intellectual pride?like the young girl in her story ?The Temple of the Holy Ghost,? whose character is essentially a self-portrait?she cannot help but indulge in it and worries about its spiritual consequences. Thus, desire and fear grapple with one another as O?Connor?s psychomachia rages on the page, and even as the contest takes place, she becomes a more practiced writer. [image: 'Prayer Journal' by Flannery O'Connor] *Prayer Journal *by Flannery O'Connor A second purpose served by the letters is that they filled a void at a time in O?Connor?s life when she found herself a stranger in a strange land, living and writing among people who did not share her faith. In her second entry in the *Prayer Journal *she writes: ?I dread, oh Lord, losing my faith. My mind is not strong. It is a prey to all sorts of intellectual quackery.? When O?Connor went to Iowa, she was, for the first time in her life, surrounded almost entirely by people who did not share her beliefs. Far from her devout mother and her large extended Catholic family, O?Connor struggled with doubt and feared she was not strong enough in her faith to withstand the assault made on it by her writer colleagues and the secular university culture. Her letters to God provided her with a new avenue of prayer?something she desperately needed because, in her words, ?I have been saying [the traditional prayers I have said all my life] but not feeling them.? Engaging in this colloquy with God, however, she confided, ?I can feel the warmth of love heating me when I think & write this to You.? God became a familiar, friend and confidant, rather than a distant impersonal force approachable only through sanctioned means. O?Connor was charting unknown territory in inventing these prayers?something Catholics of her era were not encouraged to do?and for a while, at least, she reveled in the experience. A third opportunity the letters gave her was the rare chance to write from the first-person perspective, something she did not do in her fiction, and to discover how to create a persona. While it is true that O?Connor attempted to be her unvarnished self in these letters, she was also creating a construct of herself. As Sessions notes in his introduction, these entries are spontaneous, but they are also revised, betraying the element of conscious craft in her writing. They are literary experiments?something O?Connor acknowledges at various times. About halfway through the journal, she writes: ?I have decided this is not much as a direct medium of prayer. Prayer is not even as premeditated as this?it is of the moment & this is too slow for the moment.? In the final entry, she admits that the experiment in communing with God has not worked: ?My thoughts are so far away from God. He might as well have not made me. And the feeling I egg up writing here lasts approximately a half hour and seems a sham.? The very quality of this form of prayer she enjoyed so much at first?the feeling it engendered?she now begins to distrust. In the battle between her intellect and her heart, her intellect gets the upper hand. While O?Connor may have viewed the prayer experiment as a failure, it was in reality a great success. In creating and inhabiting the varying personae she created?Angry Flannery, Frustrated Flannery, Remorseful Flannery, Grateful Flannery?she was engaging in what Henry James once called ?The Histrionic Imagination,? effectively training herself for her work as a fiction writer. She was practicing empathy?a virtue that did not come easily to O?Connor. The cultivation of the capacity to see and describe the world from these varying perspectives would enable her to create characters who were as different from herself as chickens from peacocks. It would enable her to *become* the racist Ruby Turpin she depicts in ?Revelation?; the foul-mouthed, tattoo-obsessed O.E. Parker in ?Parker?s Back?; a selfish old grandmother *and* a sensitive serial killer in ?A Good Man is Hard to Find.? These acts of imagination make O?Connor?s writing essentially dramatic?in both *A Prayer Journal *and her fiction. Thomas Merton, on hearing of her death, compared her to Sophocles?the great dramatist?rather than another fiction writer, as she depicted the elemental human struggle between characters who were grand and yet ordinary, true-to-life and somehow larger-than-life. Writing the *Prayer Journal* helped O?Connor to grow not only in her faith but also in her art. Tweet this The poet John Keats in one of his letters writes of the two great models of the artistic imagination in comparing what he calls ?The Chameleon Poet? (represented by Shakespeare) and ?The Egotistical Sublime? (the kind of poetry pioneered by Wordsworth). Keats aspired to the condition of the Chameleon Poet, envying Shakespeare?s ability to become his characters so thoroughly that he himself disappeared, but he had difficulty accomplishing it. Keats?s best poems are those that, like Wordsworth?s, focus on himself. But O?Connor *was* able to imaginatively occupy the condition of the other. And, paradoxically, she achieved this, in part, through her letters to God, which might seem to be exercises in the Egotistical Sublime but served, ultimately, to teach her how to transcend the self?or, alternately, to write about the self through her characters. ?Is there no escape from ourselves? Into something bigger?? she asks in one of the journal entries. The answer provided by her fiction is *yes.* RELATED STORIES The Church and the Fiction Writer: From March 30, 1957 Flannery O'Connor [image: WORKSHOP DAYS. Robie Macauley, Arthur Koestler and Flannery O?Connor at Amana Colonies in Iowa, Oct 9, 1947.] Flannery O'Connor's struggle with faith illuminated in "A Prayer Journal" Susan Srigley In one of her later letters to a friend, O?Connor speaks about the first story she wrote at Iowa, ?The Geranium,? a tale about an old southerner who goes to live in the alien environment of New York City and finds himself miserably homesick for the world he left behind. O?Connor admits that at the time she knew nothing about New York City, but she* did *know something about homesickness?and since she could not write about herself, the old man served as a kind of double for her. O?Connor wrote ?The Geranium? around the same time she was writing her letters to God, and the imaginative work she did in composing them helped her to accomplish this. After nearly two years, O?Connor abruptly stopped writing her journal. One reason for this is that it had served its purpose. It is instructive that the first words of the journal express her distrust of the self??I do not know you, God, because I am in the way??and the last words are these: ?There is nothing left to say of me.? All that needed to be said of young Flannery O?Connor had been said?and it was time to turn her full attention to her characters, to pour her *self* into them and make them come alive. The fact that O?Connor?s journal is a form of literary experimentation does not make it any less genuine. This is, after all, what writers do?find language that leads to a fuller apprehension of our inner and outer weather, as Robert Frost puts it, the ways in which the self is related to the physical world and spiritual cosmos we inhabit. She moves from the practice of praise, petition and thanksgiving to interrogation and self-castigation, employing a variety of voices and rhetorical modes to arrive at a better understanding of God, herself and her vocation as an artist. Her letters to God led to self-revelation. O?Connor discovered aspects of herself she would rather not. This discovery gave her a sense of relief and permission to move on with her true work, the business of writing fiction. Prayer is what Catholics do, and O?Connor prayed in every way she could find?in church, by her bedside, in her journal and in her stories. All of these avenues gave her access to the God she so fervently sought and, blessedly, found. *This article also appeared in print, under the headline "The Epistles of Flannery O'Connor ," in the August 20, 2018 * issue. -- new book: *At Play in the Lions' Den: a biography and memoir of Daniel Berrigan* www.jimandnancyforest.com/2017/06/daniel-berrigan-bio/ recipient of the International Thomas Merton Society?s ?Louie? award: *The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers * www.jimandnancyforest.com/2016/06/root-of-war-is-fear/ *books in print: *www.jimandnancyforest.com/books/ *web site: *www.jimandnancyforest.com *photos: *www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/albums/ *Amazon author page*: www.amazon.com/author/jimforest -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at loyno.edu Wed Aug 15 07:20:52 2018 From: marcus at loyno.edu (Marcus Smith) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2018 06:20:52 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 141, Issue 1 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The Mike Scott article says "The Moviegoer" was inspired by Dante's "Divine Comedy?. First time I ever heard this. On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 4:33 AM wrote: > Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to > percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Fwd: The Moviegoer. (honeyjbc1) > 2. Of Interest: A portrait of Walker Percy by artist Maddie > Stratton of Where Y'Art, as commissioned by NOLA.com (Henry P. Mills) > 3. Re: Of Interest: A portrait of Walker Percy by artist Maddie > Stratton of Where Y'Art, as commissioned by NOLA.com (honeyjbc1) > 4. Flannery O?Connor found her art?and her God?in letters > (Jim Forest) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2018 11:15:44 -0400 > From: honeyjbc1 > To: percy lists > Subject: [percy-l] Fwd: The Moviegoer. > Message-ID: > < > CAG4ie01M7e9Aa3RV5zgOimGD2QBVHppXrawa8ODfppA5WwwwFw at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Attention all Percy lovers: > > Jessica Hooten Wilson will be interviewed on a podcast probably available > on September 1st. > Subject? > The Moviegoer! > > John Miller does these wonderful interviews of scholars who are experts on > their subjects and it is all part of a Great Books discussion series under > the auspices of Hillsdale college. > > He is a wonderful questioner and usually the podcasts are exceptional. > > If anyone has trouble finding the podcast, let me know and I will make sure > the List has the link. > > Can't wait. > Janet Cantor > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20180801/0320e52c/attachment-0001.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2018 03:12:18 -0400 > From: "Henry P. Mills" > To: Percy-L > Subject: [percy-l] Of Interest: A portrait of Walker Percy by artist > Maddie Stratton of Where Y'Art, as commissioned by NOLA.com > Message-ID: <19D9F200-765B-460C-9D6C-76AC1840057D at gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Dear Percy-L: > > Enjoy this modern art painting of Percy and a rundown of numerous trivia > related to him in the August 8 New Orleans The Times-Picayune. > > All best, > Henry Mills > Percy-L Administrator > > https://www.nola.com/300/2018/08/walker_percy_author_the_movieg.html < > https://www.nola.com/300/2018/08/walker_percy_author_the_movieg.html> > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20180810/6846047a/attachment-0001.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2018 10:22:15 -0400 > From: honeyjbc1 > To: percy lists > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Of Interest: A portrait of Walker Percy by > artist Maddie Stratton of Where Y'Art, as commissioned by NOLA.com > Message-ID: > < > CAG4ie02g4DNE7kvrng+x6gNf4nJuX0TwC_bcvo47818G5Y0ZLQ at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Bill Binnings was a friend of Percy. > I wonder if he was a friend of his when Percy wrote The Moviegoer. Binx > Boling? > > Janet Cantor > > On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 3:12 AM Henry P. Mills > wrote: > > > Dear Percy-L: > > > > Enjoy this modern art painting of Percy and a rundown of numerous trivia > > related to him in the August 8 New Orleans The Times-Picayune. > > > > All best, > > Henry Mills > > Percy-L Administrator > > > > https://www.nola.com/300/2018/08/walker_percy_author_the_movieg.html > > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > > > * Manage Your Membership: > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org > > > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20180810/66326138/attachment-0001.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2018 11:33:03 +0200 > From: Jim Forest > To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > > Subject: [percy-l] Flannery O?Connor found her art?and her God?in > letters > Message-ID: > ftv0uNE87XhOgA53hAmRPDwccuLCARJLRvQ at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/08/08/how-flannery-oconnor-found-her-art-and-her-god-lettersFlannery > O?Connor > > found her art?and her God?in letters > > Angela Alaimo O'Donnell > August 08, > 2018 > Facebook > Twitter > Email > > ?Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent > of a moon that I see and my self is the earth?s shadow that keeps me from > seeing all the moon. The crescent is very beautiful and perhaps that is all > one like I am should or could see; but what I am afraid of, dear God, is > that my self shadow will grow so large that I block the whole moon, and > that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing. I do not know you > God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside.? > > Flannery O?Connor wrote these words in January of 1946 when she was an MFA > student at the Iowa Writers? Workshop. They capture the spiritual agon that > she was engaged in as she struggled to discover the connection between her > vocation as a writer and her vocation as a Catholic. Found among her papers > by scholar William Sessions, a friend of hers, O?Connor?s *A Prayer > Journal* was > published to great acclaim in 2013 as it gave readers a glimpse into the > baptism by fire she endured before emerging as America?s finest Catholic > writer of the 20th century. Five years later, *Prayer Journal* continues to > appeal to readers who value her work as it teaches us not only about the > author, but also about ourselves as people in pursuit of twin vocations, > the professional and the spiritual, and the challenges of reconciling the > two. > > I recently revisited the *Prayer Journal* and found it to be as poignant > and profound as when I first read it. What strikes me on this reading is > the way writing the journal helped O?Connor to grow not only in her faith > but also in her art, enabling a fledgling writer to experiment with and > discover her literary vocation and voice. Most of the entries in the > *Prayer > Journal*, beginning in Jan. 1946 and concluding in Sept. 1947, take the > form of letters. This is a genre O'Connor would master after she > was diagnosed with lupus and exiled to her mother?s farm, Andalusia, in > rural Georgia for the last 13 years of her life. During this period letters > would become her primary means of communication with the outside > world. These mature letters, wherein the full range of O?Connor?s literary > gifts are on display, were eventually published as *The Habit of Being, > *one > of the finest collections of correspondence ever produced by a writer. > > Letter writing is a genre O'Connor would master after she was diagnosed > with lupus and exiled to her mother?s farm. > Tweet this > > O?Connor enjoyed letter-writing from an early age and took some pride in > her skill. In an earlier journal O?Connor kept in college, humorously > (mis)titled *Higher Mathematics* and recently found among her papers*, *she > writes: ?My epistolary powers enthrall me. It is a pity I can?t receive my > own letters. If they produce as much whole-hearted approval at their > destination as they do at their source, they should indeed be able to keep > my memory alive?and healthy? (Jan. 22, 1944). These early letters are, in > some ways, apprentice pieces, preparation for the mature letters she would > write and also served as practice for her fiction. > > The epistolary element of the *Prayer Journal*, in particular, provided her > with the opportunity to write letters of a different nature from any she > had written before. For these are letters to God and, as such, opened up an > avenue for communication about matters of the soul, making them more frank > and intimate than any she might have penned to ordinary people. The letters > functioned in a variety of ways, but for present purposes I would like to > focus on three. > > First, they gave her the chance to explore her most private thoughts and > feelings without exposing herself or her work to judgment or > censure?something she endured on a regular basis at the Iowa > workshop. Unlike her fiction, which she hoped would be read by many people, > her letters to God would, like prayer, remain sealed and secret. This gave > O?Connor the freedom to address her greatest spiritual challenges and her > besetting sins. Among these are the twin torments of fear and desire. As > the opening excerpt suggests, one of her primary fears is that of the self > and its relentless demands. She also fears the tyranny of her intellect, > the loss of her faith and literary and spiritual mediocrity. But more than > fear, these letters are the record of desire. O?Connor writes at one point > that supplication is the only kind of prayer she is good at. She desires > many things, but what she wants most of all is to be a good writer: > > Dear God, I am so discouraged about my work. . . . Please help me dear God > to be a good writer and to get something else accepted. That is so far from > what I deserve, of course, that I am naturally struck with the nerve of it. > > Her desire for literary accomplishment and fame exists in tension with her > fear of her own pride and egotism. She knows she is smart and is very much > taken with her own intellect. In another letter to God, after making a joke > in the midst of her prayer (her sense of humor forever getting the best of > her, both in her stories and her letters), she confesses, ?I do not mean to > be clever . . . although I *do* mean to be clever on 2nd thought and > *like* to > be clever and *want *to be considered so.? Though she knows the danger of > intellectual pride?like the young girl in her story ?The Temple of the Holy > Ghost,? whose character is essentially a self-portrait?she cannot help but > indulge in it and worries about its spiritual consequences. Thus, desire > and fear grapple with one another as O?Connor?s psychomachia rages on the > page, and even as the contest takes place, she becomes a more practiced > writer. > [image: 'Prayer Journal' by Flannery O'Connor] > < > https://www.americamagazine.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/prayerjournal.jpg > >*Prayer > Journal *by Flannery O'Connor > > > > A second purpose served by the letters is that they filled a void at a time > in O?Connor?s life when she found herself a stranger in a strange land, > living and writing among people who did not share her faith. In her second > entry in the *Prayer Journal *she writes: ?I dread, oh Lord, losing my > faith. My mind is not strong. It is a prey to all sorts of intellectual > quackery.? When O?Connor went to Iowa, she was, for the first time in her > life, surrounded almost entirely by people who did not share her beliefs. > Far from her devout mother and her large extended Catholic family, O?Connor > struggled with doubt and feared she was not strong enough in her faith to > withstand the assault made on it by her writer colleagues and the secular > university culture. Her letters to God provided her with a new avenue of > prayer?something she desperately needed because, in her words, ?I have been > saying [the traditional prayers I have said all my life] but not feeling > them.? Engaging in this colloquy with God, however, she confided, ?I can > feel the warmth of love heating me when I think & write this to You.? God > became a familiar, friend and confidant, rather than a distant impersonal > force approachable only through sanctioned means. O?Connor was charting > unknown territory in inventing these prayers?something Catholics of her era > were not encouraged to do?and for a while, at least, she reveled in the > experience. > > A third opportunity the letters gave her was the rare chance to write from > the first-person perspective, something she did not do in her fiction, and > to discover how to create a persona. While it is true that O?Connor > attempted to be her unvarnished self in these letters, she was also > creating a construct of herself. As Sessions notes in his introduction, > these entries are spontaneous, but they are also revised, betraying the > element of conscious craft in her writing. They are literary > experiments?something O?Connor acknowledges at various times. About halfway > through the journal, she writes: ?I have decided this is not much as a > direct medium of prayer. Prayer is not even as premeditated as this?it is > of the moment & this is too slow for the moment.? In the final entry, she > admits that the experiment in communing with God has not worked: ?My > thoughts are so far away from God. He might as well have not made me. And > the feeling I egg up writing here lasts approximately a half hour and seems > a sham.? The very quality of this form of prayer she enjoyed so much at > first?the feeling it engendered?she now begins to distrust. In the battle > between her intellect and her heart, her intellect gets the upper hand. > > While O?Connor may have viewed the prayer experiment as a failure, it was > in reality a great success. In creating and inhabiting the varying personae > she created?Angry Flannery, Frustrated Flannery, Remorseful Flannery, > Grateful Flannery?she was engaging in what Henry James once called ?The > Histrionic Imagination,? effectively training herself for her work as a > fiction writer. She was practicing empathy?a virtue that did not come > easily to O?Connor. The cultivation of the capacity to see and describe the > world from these varying perspectives would enable her to create characters > who were as different from herself as chickens from peacocks. It would > enable her to *become* the racist Ruby Turpin she depicts in ?Revelation?; > the foul-mouthed, tattoo-obsessed O.E. Parker in ?Parker?s Back?; a selfish > old grandmother *and* a sensitive serial killer in ?A Good Man is Hard to > Find.? These acts of imagination make O?Connor?s writing essentially > dramatic?in both *A Prayer Journal *and her fiction. Thomas Merton, on > hearing of her death, compared her to Sophocles?the great dramatist?rather > than another fiction writer, as she depicted the elemental human struggle > between characters who were grand and yet ordinary, true-to-life and > somehow larger-than-life. > > Writing the *Prayer Journal* helped O?Connor to grow not only in her faith > but also in her art. > Tweet this > > The poet John Keats in one of his letters writes of the two great models of > the artistic imagination in comparing what he calls ?The Chameleon Poet? > (represented by Shakespeare) and ?The Egotistical Sublime? (the kind of > poetry pioneered by Wordsworth). Keats aspired to the condition of the > Chameleon Poet, envying Shakespeare?s ability to become his characters so > thoroughly that he himself disappeared, but he had difficulty accomplishing > it. Keats?s best poems are those that, like Wordsworth?s, focus on himself. > But O?Connor *was* able to imaginatively occupy the condition of the other. > And, paradoxically, she achieved this, in part, through her letters to God, > which might seem to be exercises in the Egotistical Sublime but served, > ultimately, to teach her how to transcend the self?or, alternately, to > write about the self through her characters. ?Is there no escape from > ourselves? Into something bigger?? she asks in one of the journal entries. > The answer provided by her fiction is *yes.* > > RELATED STORIES > The Church and the Fiction Writer: From March 30, 1957 > > Flannery O'Connor > > [image: WORKSHOP DAYS. Robie Macauley, Arthur Koestler and Flannery > O?Connor at Amana Colonies in Iowa, Oct 9, 1947.] > Flannery O'Connor's struggle with faith illuminated in "A Prayer Journal" > > Susan Srigley > > In one of her later letters to a friend, O?Connor speaks about the first > story she wrote at Iowa, ?The Geranium,? a tale about an old southerner who > goes to live in the alien environment of New York City and finds himself > miserably homesick for the world he left behind. O?Connor admits that at > the time she knew nothing about New York City, but she* did *know something > about homesickness?and since she could not write about herself, the old man > served as a kind of double for her. O?Connor wrote ?The Geranium? around > the same time she was writing her letters to God, and the imaginative work > she did in composing them helped her to accomplish this. > > After nearly two years, O?Connor abruptly stopped writing her journal. One > reason for this is that it had served its purpose. It is instructive that > the first words of the journal express her distrust of the self??I do not > know you, God, because I am in the way??and the last words are these: > ?There is nothing left to say of me.? All that needed to be said of young > Flannery O?Connor had been said?and it was time to turn her full attention > to her characters, to pour her *self* into them and make them come alive. > > The fact that O?Connor?s journal is a form of literary experimentation does > not make it any less genuine. This is, after all, what writers do?find > language that leads to a fuller apprehension of our inner and outer > weather, as Robert Frost puts it, the ways in which the self is related to > the physical world and spiritual cosmos we inhabit. She moves from the > practice of praise, petition and thanksgiving to interrogation and > self-castigation, employing a variety of voices and rhetorical modes to > arrive at a better understanding of God, herself and her vocation as an > artist. > > Her letters to God led to self-revelation. O?Connor discovered aspects of > herself she would rather not. This discovery gave her a sense of relief and > permission to move on with her true work, the business of writing fiction. > Prayer is what Catholics do, and O?Connor prayed in every way she could > find?in church, by her bedside, in her journal and in her stories. All of > these avenues gave her access to the God she so fervently sought and, > blessedly, found. > > *This article also appeared in print, under the headline "The Epistles of > Flannery O'Connor ," in the August 20, 2018 > * issue. > > -- > new book: > *At Play in the Lions' Den: a biography and memoir of Daniel Berrigan* > > www.jimandnancyforest.com/2017/06/daniel-berrigan-bio/ > > recipient of the International Thomas Merton Society?s ?Louie? award: > *The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers * > www.jimandnancyforest.com/2016/06/root-of-war-is-fear/ > > *books in print: *www.jimandnancyforest.com/books/ > *web site: *www.jimandnancyforest.com > *photos: *www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/albums/ > *Amazon author page*: www.amazon.com/author/jimforest > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20180815/31918c50/attachment.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > Percy-L mailing list > Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org > https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > > ------------------------------ > > End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 141, Issue 1 > *************************************** > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Mon Aug 27 07:27:13 2018 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2018 07:27:13 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] New Essay Collection on Percy Available Online: "Walker Percy, Philosopher" (Leslie Marsh, Ed., 2018) Message-ID: Dear Percy-L: I am pleased to announce the availability of a new essay collection featuring 12 essayists focusing on Walker Percy?s philosophy. Edited by Leslie Marsh of The Univ. of British Columbia Medical School, Canada, a member of our Percy-L community, the collection is a welcome addition to Percy scholarship in its specialized examinations of Percy?s philosophy. Below, you will find a book description and a link to the book's online table of contents. The first two pages of each essay are available to read as free samples. Leslie, we in the Percy-L community and all students and scholars of Percy are greatly indebted to you for your efforts in bringing together this outstanding new scholarly resource! All best wishes, Henry Mills Percy-L Administrator ____________________________________________ Walker Percy, Philosopher Essay Collection Marsh, Leslie (Ed.) Palgrave Macmillan Publishers, 2018 Available as Hardback or E-book BOOK DESCRIPTION Though Walker Percy is best known as a novelist, he was first and foremost a philosopher. This collection offers a sustained examination of key aspects to his more technical philosophy (primarily semiotics and the philosophy of language) as well as some of his lesser known philosophical interests, including the philosophy of place and dislocation. Contributors expound upon Percy?s multifaceted philosophy, in an invitation to literature and theology scholars as well as to philosophers who may not be familiar with the philosophical underpinnings of his work. Percy?s examination and application of the writings of C.S. Peirce is considered in numerous essays. ________________________________________________________ VIEW TABLE OF CONTENTS, AUTHORS, AND ESSAY PREVIEWS: 12 chapters total, each available with online preview of first two pages https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319779676#aboutBook _______________ JACKET REVIEW ?For Walker Percy, philosophy and fiction were both tools for diagnosing the human condition, just as his medical training had taught him about the tools for diagnosing the human body. His aim was nothing less than trying to understand how we fit into the cosmos. This collection of essays is a fascinating and worthy exploration of how philosophy informed his novels and the religious and existential quest that he called ?the search.? I can imagine him reading this book, with his wry smile and lightly worn grace, nodding appreciatively.? --Walter Isaacson, Professor of History, Tulane University, USA, and biographer of Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Benjamin Franklin __________________ ABOUT THE EDITOR Leslie Marsh is with the International Academy of Pathology based at The University of British Columbia Medical School, Canada. He is the co-founder of the philosophy journal EPISTEME, Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism and is the editor of books on Adam Smith, Herbert Simon, Friedrich Hayek, and Michael Oakeshott. His contact address is < leslie.marsh at ubc.ca >. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Walker-Percy-Philosopher-Cover.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 58392 bytes Desc: not available URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Mon Aug 27 07:56:46 2018 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2018 07:56:46 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] New Essay Collection on Percy Available Online: "Walker Percy, Philosopher" (Leslie Marsh, Ed., 2018) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <82115F5B-A9A0-4E95-9F71-608876396CE7@gmail.com> P.S. Community members are welcome to comment on/discuss any aspect of the collection via Percy-L for all to enjoy. Members may also contact Leslie directly at his email address located in his bio below. Henry Mills Percy-L Administrator > On Aug 27, 2018, at 7:27 AM, Henry P. Mills wrote: > > Dear Percy-L: > > I am pleased to announce the availability of a new essay collection featuring 12 essayists focusing on Walker Percy?s philosophy. Edited by Leslie Marsh of The Univ. of British Columbia Medical School, Canada, a member of our Percy-L community, the collection is a welcome addition to Percy scholarship in its specialized examinations of Percy?s philosophy. > > Below, you will find a book description and a link to the book's online table of contents. The first two pages of each essay are available to read as free samples. > > Leslie, we in the Percy-L community and all students and scholars of Percy are greatly indebted to you for your efforts in bringing together this outstanding new scholarly resource! > > All best wishes, > Henry Mills > Percy-L Administrator > > > ____________________________________________ > Walker Percy, Philosopher > Essay Collection > Marsh, Leslie (Ed.) > Palgrave Macmillan Publishers, 2018 > Available as Hardback or E-book > > > > BOOK DESCRIPTION > Though Walker Percy is best known as a novelist, he was first and foremost a philosopher. This collection offers a sustained examination of key aspects to his more technical philosophy (primarily semiotics and the philosophy of language) as well as some of his lesser known philosophical interests, including the philosophy of place and dislocation. Contributors expound upon Percy?s multifaceted philosophy, in an invitation to literature and theology scholars as well as to philosophers who may not be familiar with the philosophical underpinnings of his work. Percy?s examination and application of the writings of C.S. Peirce is considered in numerous essays. > > > ________________________________________________________ > VIEW TABLE OF CONTENTS, AUTHORS, AND ESSAY PREVIEWS: > 12 chapters total, each available with online preview of first two pages > https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319779676#aboutBook > > > _______________ > JACKET REVIEW > ?For Walker Percy, philosophy and fiction were both tools for diagnosing the human condition, just as his medical training had taught him about the tools for diagnosing the human body. His aim was nothing less than trying to understand how we fit into the cosmos. This collection of essays is a fascinating and worthy exploration of how philosophy informed his novels and the religious and existential quest that he called ?the search.? I can imagine him reading this book, with his wry smile and lightly worn grace, nodding appreciatively.? > > --Walter Isaacson, Professor of History, Tulane University, USA, and biographer of Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Benjamin Franklin > > > __________________ > ABOUT THE EDITOR > Leslie Marsh is with the International Academy of Pathology based at The University of British Columbia Medical School, Canada. He is the co-founder of the philosophy journal EPISTEME, Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism and is the editor of books on Adam Smith, Herbert Simon, Friedrich Hayek, and Michael Oakeshott. His contact address is < leslie.marsh at ubc.ca >. > > > > > > > > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: