ENGL 4310

I have to admit that I was slightly taken aback by O’Connor’s curtness in some of her letters. After reading some of her stories, I have no idea why though. Part of it was the striking difference between her voice in her letters and her voice in her stories. She is feisty and honest to a fault. When I began to read her letters I tried to focus on the letters written to A. I was a little intrigued with the relationship. I loved that she marked up the Commonweal with, “all the marks on the copy, everything commented upon, doodles, exclamation points, cheers, growls” (1088). She just has a very clear vision of what she likes and dislikes, which is good.
In reading these letters to A. I got distracted and changed to reading the letters to Catharine Carver. It was just fascinating to me to see O’Connor’s comments back to an editor about her own writing. Like things that worked and didn’t work, how she worked through the process of writing these stories, ect. One of my favorites was a short one, where she writes, “When the grim reaper comes to get me, he’ll have to give me a few extra hours to revise my last words. No end to this” (1090). The revision process is never over. I think more than anything, reading these letters gave me more insight to the mind of a writer, and probably hope that I am one too.
I was questioning how O’Connor judged her criticisms, how she chose what to take and what to leave behind. I think, correct me if I am wrong, that she always chose what was best for the story and the style, rather than what would make the story publishable or easy. She seemed to have an amazingly strong hold on who she was as a writer, what she was trying to say, and what her stories were. Now if I could only figure out how she did that…