Flannery O'Connor: The Imagination of Extremity [Paperback]

Frederick Asals (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2007

This study explores the dualities that inform the entire body of Flannery O'Connor's fiction. From the almost unredeemable world of Wise Blood to the climactic moments of revelation that infuse The Violent Bear It Away and Everything That Rises Must Converge, O'Connor's novels and stories wrestle with extremes of faith and reason, acceptance and revolt; they arch between cool narrative and explosive action, between a sacramental vision and a primary intuition of reality.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Asals's study is an investigation of the dynamics of O'Connor's imagination, and as such it is one of the most complex, challenging, and intellectually exciting studies of her work yet to appear. . . . A superb and penetrating analysis."--Flannery O'Connor Bulletin

"To my taste, the most impressive book [of O'Connor criticism published to date. . . . Asals is especially helpful because, unlike the horde of critics who expound a static deductive vision on O'Connor's part, he traces her growth toward the relative serenity of her later work."--New York Review of Books

"The best book yet written on Flannery O'Connor, not only scholarly, useful, and intelligent, but written with a clarity and grace rare in critical prose. It is an impressive achievement."--Modern Fiction Studies

"An impressive piece of scholarship, with an abundance of informative notes. Asals' assertions are invariably provocative, and the essentially severe view of O'Connor is a valuable corrective to the sentimentalized Christian humanist theory."--American Literature

About the Author

Frederick Asals is a professor of English at New College, University of Toronto.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press; Reissue edition (December 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820331848
• ISBN-13: 978-0820331843
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,942,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on O'Connor ever written!!!, May 20, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flannery O'Connor: The Imagination of Extremity (Paperback)

I have written my MA thesis on O'Connor, and I can tell you that you will not find a better book that this one for teaching or research. Asals exploration of O'Connor is so extensive, clear and perceptive it discourages further efforts.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Descriptive review from from Flannery O'Connor: An Annotated Reference Guide to Criticism, July 16, 2008

By 

R. Neil Scott "Writer, Professor & User Servi... (Murfreesboro, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flannery O'Connor: The Imagination of Extremity (Paperback)

Asals submits that his "overriding concern...is to plot out the most significant dimensions of the imagination" seen in Flannery O'Connor's works, and "to focus on her fascination with tensions and polarities."

Observes her use of startling and violent dualistic images and her debt to previous writers of the grotesque. Notes the unreconciled extremes evident in her fiction and outlines how and why these elements work so effectively. Discusses in the first chapter sources and influences for some of her early stories, including: "The Geranium," "The Turkey," "The Crop," "The Barber," "Wildcat" and "The Train."

The following three chapters focus on O'Connor's artistic practice in her more mature stories: "from close attention to texture...to examination of a crucial and recurrent pattern of character and action...to exploration of some characteristic habits of mind and the fictional strategies that embody them." Asals illustrates his points by drawing upon a variety of stories, then focuses on one story in particular for each chapter.

In the fifth chapter Asals discusses O'Connor's novel "The Violent Bear It Away," "both as a culmination of trends in her fiction after "Wise Blood" [novel] and as a significant achievement in its own right."

Outlines, in the final chapter, religious dimensions of O'Connor's imagination, focusing on her aesthetic discrimination. Maintains that inferences related to her theology "need to be determined within the larger imaginative structure of her fiction, not outside of it." Asals is dismayed to note that studies -- including his own -- seem to miss "the incorrigible sense of comedy that animates" her creations. Finds O'Connor's fiction to reflect "a world of pain dominated by the crucified, not the resurrected Christ, given over to sharp suffering and sudden death."

Adapted by R. Neil Scott from: Scott, R. Neil. FLANNERY O'CONNOR: AN ANNOTATED REFERENCE GUIDE TO CRITICISM. Milledgeville, GA: Timberlane Books, 2002. To order go to: www.TimberlaneBooks.com