The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews by Flannery O'Connor:
Jordan, Patrick
In brief The Presence Of Grace And Other Book Reviews By Flannery O'Connor, Compiled by Leo J. Zuber, edited by Carter W. Martin, University of Georgia Press, $16, 189 pp. This is a splendid...
...O'Connor took seriously the intellectual content of her faith, and took it where it was least likely to be found...
...This collection is guaranteed to provoke belly laughs, widen eyeballs, and - prolong reflection...
...Of unflinching clarity and laced with levity, they are both sterling and searing...
...The theologians reviewed are all first-rate : Barth, Guardini, Adam, von Hugel, Congar, Chardin, Bouyer, de Lubac- a hall of fame for the out-of-print...
...The range is broad: literature, philosophy, criticism...
...Her orthodoxy runs so deep one senses the freedom and presence of divine-like judgment...
...Of a collection of stories published in the Catholic press O'Connor noted that "sin is [here] conspicuous by its absence...
...She evidenced a special interest for biblical criticism...
...For her, writes Carter W. Martin in his introduction, reviewing was "an obligation, a serious part of her life within the church...
...This is a splendid collection of 120 brief book reviews by Flannery O'Connor...
...only solid bread and marching rations...
...O'Connor wished the church had a reverse Index-to require certain books to be read...
...Of a so-called Catholic novel:' 'In fiction there is nothing worse than the combination of slick-ness and Catholicism...
...No fast-food syndrome here...
...The reviews are models of brevity (about two-hundred words each...
...The subject matter is invariably theological...
...PATRICK JORDAN...
...They appeared in The Bulletin, O'Connor's local diocesan paper, between 1956 and 1964...
Vol. 110 • November 1983 • No. 20
