Overview

Flannery O'Connor and Stylistic Asceticism explores the impact style has not only on a story's meaning, but on the reading experience. O'Connor's sparingly wrought stories, particularly in their climactic moments of divine disclosure, invite characters and readers alike into invitations of graced encounters that often wound even as they bless. Flannery O'Connor and Stylistic Asceticism draws out the force and vulnerability in reading spare stories of graced encounters by identifying a kinship with a much older form of storytelling: biblical Hebrew narrative. Focusing on the climactic scenes of O'Connor's Wise Blood and Genesis 32's account of Jacob's nighttime wrestling, Rachel Toombs offers a fresh take on the theological impact of spare narration. These stories invite readers into a posture akin to prayer where in an uncluttered space we see ourselves as we truly are and there meet God.

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9781666732214

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Reviews

Rachel Toombs's splendid new book constitutes a veritable breakthrough in our understanding of Flannery O'Connor's fiction. Until now, no one has discerned why O'Connor's flat, declarative sentences are as plain and direct as pistol shots. As in the Jacob narratives of the Old Testament, such stylistic asceticism at once startles and entices. It confronts readers with the drastic character of divine action, healing even as it wounds. Toombs's achievement is remarkable indeed. --Ralph C. Wood, Baylor University, emeritus As Rachel Toombs observes in the conclusion to her excellent study, Flannery O'Connor's 'unyielding theological convictions add dimension to her stories rather than collapsing them into soppy or didactic Christian tropes.' Toombs's attention to the dialogue between the baroque and the spare shine needed critical light on O'Connor's unique form of theological aesthetics. This sustained retrieval of the theological mysteries that inform O'Connor's literary imagination is eye opening, beautifully realized, and highly recommended. --Michael P. Murphy, Loyola University Chicago

Author Information

Rachel Toombs is director of formation at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas, and part-time lecturer in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core at Baylor University.

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