Friday, January 11, 2013

An Interesting Question

As I was chatting with Craig earlier about an idea I had for this week's blog post, he raised an interesting question.  If Flannery O'Connor were alive and writing today how would her work be different from the fiction she penned more than half a century ago?  Or would it be any different?  Would her style and themes have evolved?  If she were writing today would she sound more like Barbara Kingsolver, Dorothy Allison, or Cormac McCarthy?  While this is pure speculation on our part, I imagine that if O'Connor were writing in the twenty-first century there would be a grittier, even harder edge to her short stories and novels.  So yes, even though it might cause her mother to faint, I believe the Flannery of today would sound something like Dorothy Allison.  Don't think so?  Read Allison's semi-autobiographical novel, Bastard out of Carolina.  Though Allison's thematic concerns are more sociological than O'Connor's, I think her work is O'Connnoresque and suggests what Flannery's prose might look like were she writing in 2013. 
- Mark

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