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It is a great tribute to the profundity of Flannery O’Connor’s work that it continues to generate quality secondary literature many years after her death. Lately the conversation has taken a philosophical turn, exploring O\u2019Connor\u2019s relevance to some of the defining debates within modern philosophy. An excellent example of this kind of work is Ann Hartle\u2019s Flannery O\u2019Connor and Blaise Pascal: Recovering the Incarnation for the Modern Mind<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is an insightful and at times brilliant analysis of the Southern writer\u2019s work. Hartle makes a valuable contribution to O\u2019Connor scholarship by placing her in conversation with important modern thinkers, while also employing the tools of literary theory. Hartle explains, \u201cI approach O\u2019Connor\u2019s work from a philosophical perspective rather than the perspective of a literary critic.\u201d She later reiterates she is \u201cilluminating the meaning of her stories for the searching mind of modern man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n An Intriguing Mode of Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartle\u2019s aim is to show that O\u2019Connor provides a coherent and forceful response to \u201cmodernity,\u201d though she understands modernity in a very particular way. She is interested in the loss of the \u201cprophetic vision,\u201d beginning in the Enlightenment, that once provided the lens through which we understand \u201cthe nature of man, his fall from innocence, and the divine source of goodness.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n To explain the currents of modernity, Hartle employs an interesting methodology. She builds her dialectic around two \u201cteams,\u201d one enthusiastic about modernity and the other far more critical. In one corner, O\u2019Connor is allied with Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth-century French mathematician, scientist, and Christian apologist, who shares many of O\u2019Connor\u2019s concerns about modernity\u2019s deep deficiencies. In the other, we find the sixteenth-century French philosopher and essayist, Michel de Montaigne, and the twentieth-century psychologist Carl Jung. Hartle argues that modernity, especially as it has emerged in the twentieth century and beyond, is a calamity for faith, reason, and morals, and that Pascal is the quintessential anti-modernist to unfold O\u2019Connor\u2019s philosophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One may wonder why Hartle has assembled these historical figures as she has, especially Montaigne. Hartle anticipates our question as she explains, <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jung captures the essence of modern consciousness, the form of human consciousness which emerged in early modern philosophy, especially in the Essays<\/em> of the sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne. \u2026 To understand how O\u2019Connor responds to the modern condition, I turn to one of Montaigne\u2019s most trenchant critics: the seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Though Montaigne contributed to the philosophical evolution that draws man into himself and consequently away from God, at the same time, Montaigne was himself a Catholic and humanist whose essays speak to O\u2019Connor\u2019s insistence on self-knowledge.\u00a0Useful for productive self-reflection, for example, is his essay, \u201cTo Philosophize Is to Know How to Die.\u201d In addition, Montaigne was influenced by St. Augustine of Hippo, especially his Confessions<\/em>. Though it is true that Pascal was troubled by certain of Montaigne\u2019s essays, Pascal was also, in turn, influenced by Montaigne, all the while leveling sharp criticism at the essayist. Pascal was also critical of Ren\u00e9 Descartes, who is a more important early figure in the emergence of modernism; indeed, Descartes is the<\/em> central figure. Hartle, though, is focused on Montaigne rather than Descartes; a reasonable strategy given her scholarly expertise<\/a> in Montaigne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartle sees in Montaigne at least two characteristics that make him a more significant influence in philosophical modernity than some realize. His essay medium brings philosophy down to the street level, accessible to a broad audience. Secondly, Montaigne turns our attention away from the divine to the solely human. Indeed, and as Hartle notes, Pascal found Montaigne\u2019s apparent indifference to meaningful religion deeply disturbing, though, ironically, Montaigne as a foil brought out the best in Pascal, not only in substance but also in the aphoristic style that characterizes the Pens\u00e9es<\/em>. Nonetheless, Pascal\u2019s criticism is at times surprisingly harsh, almost visceral. In #63, he wrote, \u201cMontaigne\u2019s faults are great. \u2026 He suggests an indifference about salvation, without fear and without repentance. As his book was not written with a religious purpose, he was not bound to mention religion; but it is always our duty not to turn men from it.\u201d Montaigne\u2019s conception of death is \u201cpagan,\u201d even \u201ccowardly and effeminate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To some, this dialectic may feel curious or ad hoc, but Hartle rightly notes that both Jung and Pascal were of interest to O\u2019Connor. As is typical for O\u2019Connor, however, her comments about both are brief and incidental to other discussions. She once told Alfred Corn, a young man struggling with faith at Emory University, that Pascal might be useful for him, and she remarked to another correspondent that \u201cJung is probably just as dangerous as Freud.\u201d Yet O\u2019Connor seems to acknowledge the psychologist as an important figure worthy of attention: \u201cJung has something to offer religion, but is at the same time very dangerous for it.\u201d O\u2019Connor wrote to Fr. James McCown (and this confirms Hartle\u2019s strategy): \u201cYou ought to get hold of [Jung\u2019s writing] just to see what you have to combat in the modern mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pascal and the \u201cSpiritualization of the Incarnation\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pascal\u2019s inclusion merits some explanation, also. His response to the Cartesian tradition does not draw upon the classical or scholastic tradition, though O\u2019Connor is deeply indebted to those traditions. Pascal endorsed man\u2019s ability and obligation to reason; at the same time, and unlike certain other figures of the Enlightenment, Pascal famously insisted that reason has its limit, as he asserts, \u201cThe heart has its reasons which reason knows not.\u201d He argues that a truly rational approach requires balancing reason with divine mystery. \u201cTruly, thou art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior,\u201d writes Isaiah (45:15, KJV). Pascal\u2019s understanding of mystery would undoubtedly have been gratifying to O\u2019Connor, as would Pascal\u2019s call to humility. Man is \u201clost\u201d in a \u201cremote corner of nature.\u201d His existence is dwarfed by the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartle explains that her thesis is based on the \u201cspiritualization\u201d of the incarnation. This is an interesting phrase, but its meaning is not self-evident, and some explanation is in order: she seems to consider that the central Christian event has been redefined and given a \u201cpurely human meaning.\u201d Other phrases that might be used include \u201csecularizing the incarnation\u201d or \u201cdesacralizing the incarnation.\u201d Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) warned against \u201cnaturalism,\u201d which reduces the spiritual and supernatural to merely human experience. Hartle\u2019s phrase underscores the way in which those she criticizes have \u201cabstracted\u201d the spiritual into meaninglessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Descartes purports to reason his way to his own existence and then to the existence of God; Pascal, by contrast, laments how easily man is led astray given how easily reason and the senses mislead. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n So, for example, she explains that \u201cJung denies the historical reality of the incarnation, turning it into a mere idea or symbol which is essential for psychological health.\u201d Accordingly, \u201cPascal and O\u2019Connor see their task as the recovery of the historical embodied reality of the incarnation for the modern mind from the distortions of this spiritualization.\u201d This misappropriation of the central Christian event is re-purposed in the interest of \u201cmodern man\u2019s attempt at self-creation and self-redemption.\u201d This brings to mind O\u2019Connor\u2019s well-known response to American novelist Mary McCarthy (The Group<\/em>, The Groves of Academe<\/em>), who, at a dinner party, insisted that the Eucharist is just a symbol. O\u2019Connor answered, \u201cWell, if it’s just a symbol, to hell with it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fiction and the Fight<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartle analyzes several of O\u2019Connor\u2019s stories and demonstrates how they are meaningful responses to modernity: her novel Wise Blood<\/em>, her short story \u201cGood Country People,\u201d O\u2019Connor\u2019s second novel The Violent Bear It Away<\/em>, and her oft-anthologized \u201cA Good Man Is Hard to Find.\u201d All of these analyses are revealing; Hartle\u2019s combination of Pascal and \u201cA Good Man Is Hard to Find\u201d is the most straightforward and compelling. In this story, the character of the Misfit seems to speak for O\u2019Connor: He is uncompromising when it comes to the appropriate response to Divine revelation. Indeed, he asserts that Jesus has \u201cthrown everything off balance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If He did what He said, then it\u2019s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn\u2019t, then it\u2019s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can\u2014by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n For Pascal, the choices are no less stark as he anticipates the equivocation that is a hallmark of the modern age. He asserts,<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are only three sorts of people: those who have found God and serve him; those who are busy seeking him and have not found him; those who live without either seeking or finding him. The first are reasonable and happy, the last are foolish and unhappy, those in the middle are unhappy and reasonable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Like the Misfit, Pascal offers no middle ground. He asserts that there is \u201can absolute distinction between those who strive with all their might to learn and those who live without troubling themselves or thinking about it.\u201d This \u201csupernatural torpor\u201d is a \u201cmonstrous thing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He has little sympathy with individuals who are not brutally honest with themselves: \u201cI can only approve of those who seek with groans.\u201d Several of O\u2019Connor\u2019s characters are given the opportunity to respond to grace with nothing less than brutal honesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Descartes purports to reason his way to his own existence and then to the existence of God; Pascal, by contrast, laments how easily man is led astray, given how easily reason and the senses mislead. Even more, reason and sense experience may be set in turmoil by the passions. He explains, \u201cThese two sources of truth, reason and the senses \u2026 deceive each other in turn.\u201d The faculties \u201crival each other in falsehood and deception.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartle further demonstrates that for all of her supposed reasoning powers, Hulga, in \u201cGood Country People,\u201d is trapped in self-deception precisely by her misdirected reason, made even worse by her doctorate in philosophy. Her faulty senses, moreover, mislead her to the ill-starred encounter with Manley Pointer, taking her to a point of no return when the hunter becomes the hunted. Hartle observes that Hulga\u2019s \u201cwooden leg captures the condition of the personality in the grip of modern consciousness: something essential is missing.\u201d Hulga is, to borrow Pascal\u2019s phrase, \u201cwithout grace,\u201d though the reader is left suspecting that her abject humiliation may expose her divine intervention. That possibility is suggested by the mirage of Pointer as O\u2019Connor describes Hulga watching the faux Bible salesman, carrying away her wooden leg. She writes, \u201cWhen she turned her churning face toward the opening, she saw his blue figure struggling successfully over the green speckled lake.\u201d The illusion of his ability to \u201cwalk on water\u201d suggests that, evil though he is, Pointer is the unwitting instrument of God\u2019s grace to drive a wedge into Hulga\u2019s puerile arrogance. As Pascal notes, \u201cEvil is easy, and has infinite forms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartle\u2019s book requires a devoted read from even a well-informed reader\u2014but it is worth the effort. Her innovative strategy is successful, yielding deep insights into O\u2019Connor\u2019s concerns and work. Perhaps subheadings within the chapters might be useful, and some might appreciate an early chapter on Pascal, Montaigne, and Jung to set the stage for their employment in Hartle\u2019s project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Quibbles aside, Hartle\u2019s analysis of O\u2019Connor rings true in virtually every instance; her observations are neither sharp nor flat, and her combination of Pascal and O\u2019Connor is a pleasing harmony\u2014the contrast with Montaigne and Jung appropriately cacophonous. Flannery O\u2019Connor and Blaise Pascal: Recovering the Incarnation for the Modern Mind<\/em> is not to be missed. Like O\u2019Connor and Pascal, moreover, the only consequential response to the misdirection of modernity is, at the end of the day, religious conversion. Such conversion, though framed by reason, is a matter of the heart. <\/p>\r\n\n
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