O'Connor was famous before she was famous

Long before Flannery O'Connor was a famous author she was famous for another reason.  Watch this clip from 1932 clip that was played in movie houses across the country.

Click HERE.  I cannot figure out how to embed it.

Here love for birds grew as she did.  By the time of her death she had dozens of peacocks and other birds living on the farm with her.  According to our guest blogger who will be posting later this month she also loved to drive a short distance away to visit a small place called "Goat Town".  This small town was so small it didn't even have a stop sign or light but it did have one small store that tied its goats to the railing earning the town its nickname.  She even drove visitors over to the town to see all of the goats.

I know here love of peacocks does little to help us in our study of Wise Blood but I found it too interesting not to share.  

What is Lupus?

When I read that Flannery O’Connor died of Lupus my first thought was, “That is really sad.  What is Lupus anyways?” 

According to my research it is a systematic autoimmune disease that can affect any part of the body.  The official name is “Systemic Lupus Erythematosus” or lupus for short.  With this disease the immune system actual turns on the person’s body and it begins to attack itself.  This causes inflammation and damages tissues at the site of the attack.  Most commonly the systems that are most affected include the heart, joints, skin, lungs, blood vessels, liver, kidney and nervous systems. 

This disease is hard to diagnose because of the fact that it could possible affect so many different areas mimicking other possible health issues.  This was the case with O’Connor.  She had been sick for a while (even had a floating kidney issue) and had been diagnosed with arthritis.  She wasn’t officially diagnosed with lupus until 1950 (she found out about the diagnosis in 1952).

Today this disease is treatable, though not curable, and most patients live a long healthy life despite the disease.  In O’Connor’s time this was not the case.  Being diagnosed with Lupus was a death sentence and usually meant that the person had 5 years to live or less and the death would be a slow painful one.  O’Connor knew this fact having watched her dad die from the same disease.

Because of her status O’Connor was able to take the latest and greatest in drugs to treat Lupus and was able to defy statistics by living 14 years with the disease.  During this time she completed most of her work writing up to the very end.  She did have frequent flares of the disease that caused her great trouble and she was forced to use crutches to walk for the last 9 years of her life. 

O’Connor never made a big deal of her disease.  She instead focused on the things that mattered most to her.  Because of this instead of spending her final years at home mopping she instead set out to write things that would forever change the world.  The simple fact that we are reading her book on the list of the 100 greatest novels shows that she accomplished her goal.  In 39 short years she accomplished what the average writer cannot accomplish in a lifetime.  

A brief introduction to Wise Blood

Good morning! Let me be the first to welcome you to the month of June.

 Many people are excited because the month of June marks the first full month of summer. They will all be outside working in the yard or catching a game at the local ballpark. Most of the kids are home from school and vacation season has finally begun. As readers we have an extra reason to be happy for June. This marks the second month of our ‘100 Novel Challenge’ giving us the opportunity to read another of the greatest novels of all time, Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor.

 Wise Blood was published on May 15, 1952 marking the beginning of a short but powerful writing career. The publishing of the story of Hazel Motes didn’t attract a great deal of positive attention at first. One of the first critics even went as far as to say that it was the “work of insanity”. Another critic wondered “if the struggle to get from one sentence to the next is worthwhile”. Reactions from Flannery’s family were not any better. Regina, Flannery’s mom, fell asleep on page 9. A cousin of hers ordered advance copies to send to all of her friends (the local priests) without having read a word of the book. When she finally received her copy some say she was so upset by what she read that she spent a week in bed and then sent apologies to everyone she had sent a copy to. Another older relative simply sent her a note stating, ‘I do not like your book’.

 That first wave of poor reviews was followed by reviews that gave the exact opposite opinion of the book. The New York Herald Tribune Book Review wrote that “Flannery O’Connor, in her first novel, has taken on the difficult subject of religious mania, and succeeds in telling a tale at once delicate and grotesque.” Newsweek called O’Connor “the most naturally gifted of the youngest generation of American novelists”. 

These mixed reviews show the complexity of the book we are about to read. If you are one who likes to surface read a book without looking for greater understanding you may finish this read shaking your head wondering what sort of drugs O’Connor put into her body. If you are willing to read for understanding though, you will find a deep and powerful message.

 I look forward to another great month of reading with you.

 Paper version.  I cannot find a Kindle version to link to.