#44: Ralph Wood Talks O'Connor
Close Reads Podcast
Goldberry Studios
4.4 • 823 Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2017
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Close Reads, David chats with Dr. Ralph Wood, author of Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South, about Flannery O'Connor's reputation for grimness.
Topics include: When Dr. Wood heard O'Connor give a reading live in 1962, O'Connor's sense of humor, the scandalousness of the gospel in O'Connor's canon, Julian's mother in Everything That Rises Must Converge, A View of the Woods' lack of quality, and much, much more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Close Reads here on the Circe Institute Podcast Network. |
| 0:09.1 | I'm David Kern, and today we have a special guest, a little bonus episode of Close Reads here, |
| 0:14.4 | and I'm talking with Dr. Ralph Wood about Flannery O'Connor. |
| 0:18.1 | Dr. Wood, how are you? Thanks for joining the show. |
| 0:21.5 | Oh, I'm delighted to be talking with your listeners about the hero of my life in non-biographical terms in the woman who turned my life around permanently when I first encountered her as a college junior in |
| 0:39.9 | 1960. |
| 0:41.4 | Well, those, that's a... |
| 0:42.5 | Oh, sorry, 1962. |
| 0:43.6 | Well, that's a pretty strong statement. |
| 0:46.0 | The hero of your life and the writer who turned your life around, I think, was that what you |
| 0:49.5 | just said, changed your life, turned your life around, something like that? |
| 0:54.0 | I mean, this is a broad question, but I'd love to hear more about that. |
| 0:57.7 | How did she change your life? |
| 0:59.1 | I mean, and how did she become the hero of your life? |
| 1:01.5 | I mean, I suppose there's just the literary aspect. |
| 1:03.8 | You know, you're an English teacher, so you love the literature, but is there more to it than that? |
| 1:09.0 | Oh, yeah, much more to it than that? Oh yeah, much more to it than that. |
| 1:13.0 | She came to my little college up at East, |
| 1:16.0 | what was then called East Texas State in the town of commerce, |
| 1:18.7 | about 60 miles east of Dallas, |
| 1:21.0 | to make her only Texas visit because my Roman Catholic teacher had discovered her work |
| 1:24.6 | and elsewhere and thought it would be a good thing to bring her. |
... |
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