Congratulations, Notre Dame!

Theo Riddick

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

The front cover says, "The collection that established Flannery O'Connor as a master of the short story."  The back cover says quite a bit, but among all those words are these:  Steeped in a Southern Gothic tradition that would be synonymous with her name, these stories show O'Connor's  unique, grotesque view of life...."  Ok.  I hadn't read Ms. O'Connor's stories in quite some time, so I thought I'd read this collection.  I guess I'm supposed to know what Southern Gothic tradition means, but I don't.  But let me guess.  Southern is code for racism.  Gothic?  Hmmm. In literature I think of a Gothic story as one about a woman who should be married but who isn't, and she ends up in a gloomy mansion where she meets the owner, usually a much older, ugly man and very rich, whom she ends up marrying.  Those are guesses.  So after finishing this collection-- yep, there's a whole lot of racism, blatant mid-20th Century style racism.  And as far as the Gothic stuff goes, I suppose it means plain ole dark, creepiness.  But the thing that struck me the most (besides the blatant racism) was the predictability of these stories.  O'Connor certainly had a formula, and she followed it in every story.  It got to the point where I was guessing the ending after reading the first couple pages.  It became easy to pinpoint the sentence that gave away the ending.  It became a game!  I don't want to list the sentences here because, well, that would give away the entire shtick of these stories.  However, if you want to know, lemme know, and I'll revise this post giving everything away!

Grains, Beans & Greens

Had a great lunch today made up of my favorite combo: Grains, Beans, and Greens.  FYI:  For mega serious health fanatics, this would also make a yummy breakfast. Yay! So for lunch I had a mixture of brown rice, black barley, and daikon radish seeds and on top of that I put pinto beans-- all on a bed of dandelion greens.  Here it is:

Grains, Beans, Greens -- oh my!