The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

February 19th, 2010 read pages 388 to 448. I feel like I'm in the hands of a great master and I have to remember to go slowly despite the fact that I'm on the TTC and interrupted every minute by the voice announcing subway stops for the blind. Today, I have the double voice, announcing every stop twice. I want to be only with Flannery. I love the story that Prose told about O'Connor and how she went to Lourdes to ask God for help with her multiple sclerosis, but ended up praying that her novel would go well. Like most of the books on Prose's list, O'Connor's is jaw-dropping. But how is it jaw-dropping? The subjects she chooses, the words she uses and what she notices. All of her stories are about redemption. Redemption for misfits in the U.S. South. Otherwise it would be boring, if the people were already whole. O'Connor's story today was "The Comforts of Home." Talk about odd! You'll have to read it to have your mind blown. Art has many rooms, says Prose. Sentence of the day is: "They [azaleas] seemed to wash in tides of color across the lawns until they surged against the white house-fronts, crests of pink and crimson, crests of white and a mysterious shade that was not yet lavender, wild crests of yellow-red."