Letter To Eileen Hall
Dear Mrs. Hall,
I'm enclosing a copy of an essay that has answered some of my questions and may answer some of yours, but I'd be much obliged if you'd send it back when you're through with it, because I don't have but this one copy.
About scandalizing the "little ones." When I first began to write I was much worried about this thing of scandalizing people, as I fancied that what I wrote was highly inflammatory. I was wrong—it wouldn't even have kept anybody awake, but anyway, thinking this was my problem, I talked to a priest about it. The first thing he said to me was, "You don't have to write for fifteen year old girls." Of course, the mind of a fifteen year old girl lurks in many a head that is seventy-five and people are every day being scandalized not only by what is scandalous of its nature but by what is not. If a novelist wrote a book about Abraham passing his wife Sarah off as his sister—which he did—and allowing her to be taken over by those who wanted her for their lustful purposes—which he did to save his skin—how many Catholics would not be scandalized at the behavior of Abraham? The fact is that in order not to be scandalized, one has to have a whole view of things, which not many of us have.
This is a problem that has concerned Mauriac very much and he wrote a book about it called, "God and Mammon." His conclusion was that all the novelist could do was "purify the source"—his mind. A young man had written Mauriac a letter saying that as a result of reading one of his novels, he had almost committed suicide. It almost paralyzed Mauriac. At the same time, he was not responsible for the lack of maturity in the boy's mind and there were doubtless other souls who were profiting from his books. When you write a novel, if you have been honest about it and if your conscience is dear, then it seems to me that you have to leave the rest in God's hands. When the book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry about this is to take over God's business.
I'm not one to pit myself against St. Paul but when he said "let it not so much as be named among you," I presume he was talking about society and what goes on there and not about art. Art is not anything that goes on "among" people, not the art of the novel anyway. It is something that one experiences alone and for the purpose of realizing in a fresh way, through the senses, the mystery of existence. Part of the mystery of existence is sin. When we think about the Crucifixtion, we miss the point of it if we don't think about sin.
About bad taste, I don't know, because taste is a relative matter. There are some who will find almost everything in bad taste, from spitting in the street to Christ's association with Mary Magdalen. Fiction is supposed to represent life, and the fiction writer has to use as many aspects of life as are necessary to make his total picture convincing. The fiction writer doesn't state, he shows, renders. It's the nature of fiction and it can't be helped. If you're writing about the vulgar, you have to prove they're vulgar by showing them at it. The two worst sins of bad taste in fiction are pornography and sentimentality. One is too much sex and the other too much sentiment. You have to have enough of either to prove your point but no more. Of course there are some fiction writers who feel they have to retire to the bathroom or the bed with every character every time he takes himself to either place. Unless such a trip is used to further the story, I feel it is in bad taste. In the second chapter of my novel, I have such a scene but I felt it was vital to the meaning. I don't think you have to worry much about bad taste with a competent writer, because he uses everything for a reason. The reader may not always see the reason. But it's when sex or scurrility are used for their own sakes, that they are in bad taste.
What offends my taste in fiction is when right is held up as wrong, or wrong as right. Fiction is the concrete expression of mystery—mystery that is lived. Catholics believe that all creation is good and that evil is the wrong use of good and that without Grace we use it wrong most of the time. It's almost impossible to write about supernatural Grace in fiction. We almost have to approach it negatively. As to natural Grace, we have to take that the way it comes—through nature. In any case, it operates, surrounded by evil.
I haven't so much been asked these questions as I have asked them of myself. People don't often even have the courtesy to ask them—they merely tell you where you have failed. I don't take the questions lightly and my answers are certainly not complete, but they're the best I can do to date.
Don't feel you have to review the Gordon book if you think it would cause the Bulletin embarrassment or trouble. I will certainly understand. Most of your readers wouldn't like The Malefactors if it were favorably reviewed by Pius XII.
Have you read "Art and Scholasticism" by Jacques Maritain? This "God and Mammon" is published by Sheed & Ward. Maybe that should be reviewed in the Bulletin! About twenty years late, but better late than never.
Yours with all best wishes,
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor may be purchased from Amazon.
This item 9120 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
