Ever since there have been such things as novels, the world has been flooded with bad fiction for which the religious impulse has been responsible. The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him, and that his business is to rearrange this essential vision into satisfying patterns, getting himself as little dirty in the process as possible. His feeling about this may have been made more definite by one of those Manichean-type theologies which sees the natural world as unworthy of penetration. But the real novelist, the one with an instinct for what he is about, knows that he cannot approach the infinite directly, that he must penetrate the natural human world as it is.
Flannery O’Connor (via Justin Taylor) (via sds)

sds

98 notes

Show

  1. eyesforyours reblogged this from thomasfitzpatrick
  2. thomasfitzpatrick reblogged this from mills
  3. opioneers reblogged this from mills
  4. amanatee reblogged this from mills
  5. jes-h reblogged this from mills
  6. mills reblogged this from sds and added:
    O’Connor, quoted by SDS (from others) and described, accurately, as “Mills-bait.” That someone as deeply religious...
  7. stardustpaste reblogged this from madeofstarstuff
  8. madeofstarstuff reblogged this from sds
  9. agirlcalledchris reblogged this from sds
  10. roseann reblogged this from sds
  11. ajamison reblogged this from sds
  12. sds posted this

Blog comments powered by Disqus