Live Episode: Is Flannery O'Connor Funny?

Close Reads Podcast

Goldberry Studios

Arts, Books

4.4 • 823 Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Flannery O’Connor’s fiction has been described as “gothic,” “violent,” “unsentimental,” even “grotesque.” Yet it is also often described as funny. How can both be true? Well in this episode the whole gang is back together to discuss that very question during a live recording that took place at our recent “Close Reads on the Road” event in Concord, NC. So join us as we explore O’Connor’s famous story, “Good Country People” and try to ascertain where the humor in her work comes from and why it matters. Happy listening!

Close Reads Podcast HQ is a community-supported endeavor. If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit closereads.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, I'm David Kern.
0:03.7	I'm Heidi White.
0:04.8	I'm Tim McIntosh.
0:06.5	I'm Sean Johnson.
0:07.7	And you were listening to Close Street to Podcasts for the Incurable Reader on which we are discussing Flannery O'Connor's story, good country people.
0:14.9	And we are asking the question, is Flannery O'Connor actually funny?
0:19.7	We are here with a live audience.
0:24.1	So we are going to discuss this question of whether Flannery O'Connor is funny
0:28.8	in the context of the story, Good Country People, which is, this is the final session, essentially,
0:35.2	of a weekend of 24 hours of talking about the nature of comedy.
0:39.7	What's that?
0:40.1	It's been great.
0:41.2	A magical time talking about the magic of comedy.
0:44.3	In which Heidi just confessed to a live audience that she doesn't like Mr. Bean.
0:49.2	Yeah, it's not a confession.
0:51.4	I'm not confessing anything.
0:52.8	I don't think he's funny.
0:55.9	It's just a confession. Well, maybe youing anything. I don't think he's funny. It's just, it's so confession. Maybe you should, maybe you should think about confessing that.
1:01.2	So, but we are going to try to figure out then, I want to do this last here because
1:06.2	it forces us to talk about what we mean when we talk about something being funny and maybe reflect a little bit on some of the things that we've discussed.
1:14.6	So, the, do you just out of hand kind of answer the question,
1:20.6	is Flannier O'Connor actually funny without really, like, do you just assume he's funny?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goldberry Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Goldberry Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.