Finished the book, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories. The final story is the longest, and the most devastating.

It’s even kinda hard to determine who the displaced person is in the story. On its face it refers to the refugee himself, the Pole, Mr. Guizac. But Mrs. Shortley certainly becomes displaced by events. The owner, Mrs. McIntyre ultimately becomes displaced. But, generally, let’s go with the title referring to the character who himself is called in the story the displaced person.

Although I love love loved the conversation where Mrs. Shortley is explaining to the guys what exactly a displaced person is, e.g., someone with nowhere to go, and I don’t know maybe it’s Sulk who points out that the displaced person is here, on the farm, which technically is in fact somewhere.

Mr. Guizac also is definitely the most overtly Christ-like figure in the stories, near as I can remember. The priest says that Mr. Guizac has arrived to redeem them. Later it’s either Mrs. Shortley or Mrs. McIntyre who declares that Christ was a displaced person.

The ending is, like A Good Man is Hard to Find, fairly obvious and logical in coming, and however much you’d like it not to happen, how much you really want to stop it, or maybe just stop reading to stop it, it happens quickly and brutally.

I remember when I was a kid, in like first and second grade, how we used to have two holidays in February. First Washington’s birthday and then Lincoln’s. We’d make construction paper cutout silhouettes, of Washington and Lincoln and ourselves.

Of all the stories in this Flannery O’Connor book that I’m reading, this has to have been the most powerful one I’ve read. There’s a couple left in the book now to go, but boy did this one pack a wallop.

Maybe it’s the title, but I don’t know. I’m not sure how to really take the use of the word nigger in all the stories. I generally disapprove, and generally instantly dislike whoever uses the term. O’Connor makes it a little easier when she makes so many of the characters dislikable anyway.

But The Artificial Nigger starts out making Mr. Head such a grand, fine character — The moonlight waits for his permission to enter and cast a dignifying light on everything. The chair is attentive and awaits his order. His trousers are like the garment of some great man. O’Connor describes him physically thus:

Sixty years had not dulled his responses; his physical reactions, like his moral ones, were guided by his will and strong character, and these could be seen plainly in his features.

and

His eyes were alert but quiet, and in the miraculous moonlight they had a look of composure and of ancient wisdom as if they belonged to one of the great guides of men. He might have been Vergil summoned in the middle of the night to go to Dante or better, Raphael, awakened by a blast of God’s light to fly to the side of Tobias.

She introduces him to us in the most glowing terms. He has moral will, a strong character, ancient wisdom. So it’s really much harder then to dislike him. I think I even began the story with the understanding that the title referred to him, that he was African-American and would be later the victim of the inevitable O’Connor-esqe tragedy. But then when he points out the black man to the unfortunate Nelson, and refers to him, the man, as a nigger, then all is different.

So maybe that’s part of O’Connors trickery, when the story turns out to be a journey, and about Mr. Head’s fall from grace. We feel that fall better, we internalize it better, because we’ve been set up to admire him from the beginning. Mr. Head loses his way, he loses our sympathy and Nelson’s sympathy, and then he loses his very humanity when he profoundly and disgustingly denies his kinship to Nelson. Like Peter denying Christ.

But then they re-establish their kinship, and Mr. Head regains his humanity, over the small statue, the titular statue.

“An artificial nigger!” Nelson repeated in Mr. Head’s exact tone.

The two of them stood there with their necks forward at almost the same angle and their shoulders curved in almost exactly the same way and their hands trembling identically in their pockets.

Mr. Head looked like an ancient child and Nelson like a miniature old man. They stood gazing at the artificial Negro as if they were faced with some great mystery, some monument to another’s victory that brought them together in their common defeat. They could both feel it dissolving their differences like an action of mercy.

So, um, yeah, great. I’m supposed to be pleased then that they can again establish their great bond together in their racism? This is a happy ending? Why does it have to be racism that bonds them? Is this O’Connor’s way of being snarky toward her own southern heritage, or towards non-Catholic southerners?

But then maybe the racism is the point. It itself is their sin. And O’Connor goes all out in the end, explaining the horror of sin and the serenity of mercy with astonishing power and beauty.

Mr. Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it. He understood that it grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children. He understood it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little of it to take with him. He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought him self a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no Sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.

And then the train pull away from them, disappearing “like a frightened serpent into the woods.” Like the serpent from the Garden, of course. Only this time defeated. They have received mercy and temptation leaves them alone. And Nelson declares that he will never return to Atlanta, to the place of their fall from grace.

We go to Safeway on Saturday morning, just like we do on many Saturday mornings. Ah, but today there’s a snowstorm a-comin’. Everybody is at the store today.

It’s funny actually. The aisles aren’t especially crowded. It’s just that the lines for the registers are ridiculously long. I make a special stop in the magazine aisle, grabbing National Geographic, Esquire, Consumer Reports and Fine Homebuilding, and I grab a Star for Dawn. We should have brought our books.

I end up only reading Fine Homebuilding. It’s from Taunton Press, same as Fine Woodworking, to which I subscribe. I’ve never really looked at Fine Homebuilding before, figuring it’s way out of my league. Like I figure it’s more about restoring fine antique homes rather than just old row houses like we’ve got. But it’s surprisingly accessible and enjoyable. Hey, there’s a graphic on the differences among oilstones, waterstones, diamond stones and ceramic stones. That’s right up my alley.

Unfortunately all the copies are incorrectly glued and are all falling apart. Otherwise I would have bought one. I’ll have to see if Borders nearby at work carries it. Although I did just renew my subscription to Fine Woodworking and just newly subscribed to Popular Woodworking. Don’t know if the budget will allow another magazine.

Still reading A Good Man Is Hard to Find and other stories.

The second story is The River, about a child, variously named Harry and Bevel, who, fairly neglected by his parents, spends the day being sat by a Mrs. Connin. She takes him to her home (where he steals a valuable antique children’s book about Jesus) then down to the river, where the Reverend Bevel Summers baptizes him. Later Harry returns to the river by himself and drowns himself searching for the Kingdom of Jesus, before the cancerous Mr. Paradise was likely about to molest him.

Next up is The Life You Save May Be Your Own, in which the one-armed Mr. Shiftlet arrives at the home of Lucynell Carter and her developmentally challenged adult daughter Lucynell Carter. Mrs. Carter convinces Mr. Shiftlet to marry the younger Lucynell, whom Mr. Shiftlet then abandons at a diner and makes off with Mrs. Carter’s car.

Remember in the title story, where the unpleasant people ended up being brutally murdered.
I think maybe these stories are supposed to be funny? They don’t seem at all funny when I’m reading them. But summing them up like this, all these damaged people coming to ignominious ends, it all seems really black, really somehow over the top darkly humorous.

Next is the least horrifying so far, A Stroke of Good Fortune, in which Ruby comes to the realization (horrifying to her, at least), while climbing the stairs to her fourth floor walkup, that she is pregnant. Then, in A Temple of the Holy Ghost, the twelve year old girl and her two visiting fourteen year old cousins puzzle over the mysterious transgendered person in the freak show at the fair.

I finished that story on the Metro, then turned to the next story and closed the book quietly and nonchalantly. I was somewhat dismayed, unable to read The Artificial Nigger in public.

In The Princess Bride, Prince Humperdinck makes a pronouncement regarding the pursuit of Princess Buttercup and Wesley/Dread Pirate Roberts. “Unless I am wrong,” he says, followed by a parenthetical,”and I am never wrong,” and then something about the the fire swamp.

I think about that sometimes, when I’m trying to figure something out. I really admire his confidence, but there’s also a slight gesture towards humility. Granted it’s only a nod, a conceit that only makes him more of an arrogant bastard. But it’s a charming gesture.

My version is different but, oddly, paradoxically, no less arrogant. “Unless I am wrong,” I say, “and I am always wrong,” and then I go on to say what I think something is or means or is going to happen.

So, unless I am wrong, and I am always wrong, deconstruction is taking a text, noting the underlying questions that the text is purporting to answer, and then determining that the questions themselves are incoherent.

I’m not sure how this is useful though.

I read an interesting tidbit in the Washington Post yesterday morning:

In the past 20 years, football has sharply widened its lead over baseball as America’s favorite professional sport, according to a Harris Poll in December. Fans choose football over baseball, basketball and auto racing combined, the poll found.

Huh. I don’t know what it means, more than what it says, when “fans choose football.” Meaning fans choose football as their favorite sport, is what I would guess. What it means in terms of team revenue or league revenue or television audience or player salaries, is still left quite undefined.

I know that I like football, certainly more than basketball or auto racing, neither of which I like or follow or can or will even watch. Auto racing? Good grief.

I used to watch baseball, a little, some, at least more than I do now, but have never followed a team much. I actually live only a couple blocks from a Major League Baseball stadium now, but only went once to (not) see a game that got rained out.

But I don’t even especially follow football, just watch it with Dawn. I like watching it, but will live if we miss a game.

Dawn makes fun of me for calling the game as I watch it, of my need to comment on every play, as if I actually knew what I was talking about. I think I get that from my mother. I always enjoyed watching football with her, and we sort of chatted to each other and with each other via comments around and about what was going on in the game.

Back again to the Kennedy Center for ballet, this time ABT doing Romeo & Juliet. For our night we get Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky. An interesting dynamic is that they are married in real life.

Dawn complains about Mercutio, saying he doesn’t stand out much from, and thus might as well be, Benvolio. She raves about the orchestra. I’m generally a Julie Kent or Gillian Murphy kind of guy, but I sure love Irina tonight.

Dawn tells me that apparently Juliet is something of a signature role for Alessandra Ferri, who is totally my favorite babe on the ABT website. Dawn says she doesn’t travel much, so I knew we wouldn’t be seeing her in Washington. Dawn also notes that the picture I’m so in love with is pretty old. I see now in her bio that Alessandra Ferri joined ABT as a principal dancer twenty-one years ago, which puts her age to be about 90 or so.

It also strikes me as pretty funny, adapting Shakespeare, considered the greatest writer in the English language, with the adaptation being completely devoid of words altogether.

Friday is always fondue and movie night.

We often have trouble finding the fondue at Safeway. I mean, we know where it is, but we often find our Safeway is out of stock. Safeway actually has their own brand of fondue, and we like it just fine. Sometimes they’ll have this Tiger brand, and that’s okay too. Safeway’s country and gorganzola versions we don’t like.

We tried making the fondue ourselves from scratch once, with gruyère and emmental, but it was pretty runny.

We do make the bread from scratch though. Well, as much as baking bread in a bread machine is considered making bread from scratch. I’ve done it so many times now (every Thursday, with few exceptions, for the last couple of years) that I know it by heart: 1.5 tbl sugar, 1 tsp salt, 250 ml water, 1 tbl olive oil, 3.25 cups bread flour, 1.25 tsp yeast. Set for 1.5 lb French setting and let ‘er rip.

When I was a kid we used to have fondue twice a year. This was in the seventies, when apparently fondue was all the rage in the suburbs. We got to choose whatever we wanted for dinner on our birthdays, and my brother and I always chose fondue. So I like to remember that my family had fondue every March 15 and May 27 throughout the seventies.

But back then we’d have meat fondue (Fondue Bourguignonne) as opposed to the cheese fondue (Fondue Neuchâteloise) that Dawn and I have now. For cheese fondue you just dip the bread in and then take it out, but the meat you’d have to let cook for a while. I remember we’d each have two fondue forks, and everybody’s would get crossed in the fondue pot. You had to coordinate with everyone else.

What a social meal it was really. Perfect for a birthday dinner.

Was looking for something to read night before crawling into bed and spotted Dawn’s edition of Flannery O’Connor. I’d read the title story before, but that’s all I’ve ever read of O’Connor. And I didn’t remember it much, so I brought it into bed with me.

My goodness. That story is just pure meanness.

You kinda like Grandmother at first even if she is a worry wart. I mean, the two grandchildren are little twits and hey what are the chances of meeting the Misfit anyway? But then she’s all hey look at the little nigger child there on the side of the road. (Whoa! That word! And aparently I’m going to have to get used to it, reading this book.) And then and then it’s all her fault that they get off on the dirt road looking for the house that isn’t even there, and then she’s the one who scares the cat and causes the accident.

And then she’s the one who recognizes the Misfit, who then allows that it really would have been better for everyone if she hadn’t. So then there’s the awful and agonizingly drawn out marching into the woods two by two. And the Misfit’s summation of Christ’s raising of the dead:

If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can — by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him.

No pleasure but meanness, he says.

My goodness.

I remembered the story a little better after I read it. I know that’s kind of “well, duh,” but I guess I mean I sorta remembered thinking about it after I read it years ago. I don’t know why but it made me think of St. Paul. I think maybe I had some sort of confusion between Diogenes and Paul. Something between Diogenes carrying the lamp looking for an honest man (a good man?) and St. Paul being blinded by the light on the way to Damascus.

Maybe some sort of confusion between Diogenes and Damascus? Or the two stories both involving some kind of light? Who knows. It doesn’t really make any sense, I guess.

What strikes me now is how unpleasant the whole story is. How mean the whole story is. And how crazy fucked up the Misfit is, but he does express a kernel of truth about Christianity in his crazy fucked up way.

If what happened in the Gospels really did happen, as we Catholics (including Flannery O’Connor) believe, then that changes everything. And logically, if it all didn’t happen, then what’s the point really?

My brother is a veteran of the Gulf War, so he’s by definition a veteran of a foreign war. But he refuses to join the VFW because they make you take an oath where you swear to, among other things, a belief in God. And he can’t do that.

I don’t think that he believes that there definitely isn’t a God, but he can’t swear that he believes that there is either. But he’s against abortion and stealing and murder and whatnot. And I wonder, where does that come from? Where does morality fit into a world without God?

I can understand as well I suppose the social contract version then, but Rob doesn’t really speak in those terms. He’s really a right and wrong, black and white kind of guy. Or like another man famously said, “I don’t do nuance.”

So back to morality. Morality without God. How does that work?