This is a story selected by John Updike in his Best Stories of the 20th Century collection.
Mrs. May, a Southern aristocrat on the decline, lives with her two sons in a fading mansion and farm.
In her employ is a Mr. Greenleaf, who also has two sons. One day Mrs, May spots a bull in her garden and spends the rest of the story trying to send him on his way. He is an inferior bull and she does not want her cows to breed with him.
The bull is the property of Mr. Greenleaf's sons, who have been quite successful due to their service in the war and the G.I Bill. This is a source of jealousy to Mrs. May whose sons remained Privates.
This story has no likable characters. O'Connor is equally hard on all of them. I have enjoyed many of O'Connor's works-"A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "The River" especially but this story is too blunt and sour for my taste. I am sure Updike could have chosen either of those. I wonder why he chose this one. Maybe because it is less familiar.
4 comments:
O'Connor did do a lot of excellent stories with more likeable characters. You're right that it's odd Updike would've chosen this one. I really ought to re-read some O'Connor...
I've read her collected stories. Don't remember this one.
Besides the fourth (of 5) Philip K. Dick collection, I've been reading Somerset Maugham's Collected Short Stories Volume 2 (Penguin has them in 3 volumes). "The Colonel's Lady" is one he did well. Colonel Peregrine and his wife are having breakfast. Despite being the only ones there, they sit at the opposite ends of a long table. You get a lot about their relationship from the beginning. She gets a delivery of six copies - author's copies, obviously - of a book of poetry, written under her maiden name. The Colonel glances at it briefly, but poetry is not his thing. But in the days that follow, the book makes a splash, gets great reviews, sells well, and the Colonel hears about it everywhere. When he finally reads it, it seems to be a (presumably) autobiographically-based tale of a plain, middle aged woman having a passionate love affair with a younger man, which ends tragically. He's shocked, and amazed. How could his dull wife inspire such passion?
That sounds like a good one, Jeff. I read so much Maugham in my twenties. I think the quality of my reading has tailed off. I too need to read more of O'Connor's short stories. With only two novels, clearly that is her preferred genre. The religious tone makes them unusual.
I'm not much in the mood for sour stories. But I do like Flannery O'Connor's other work.
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