Rocking the Vote

Another movies post will be up later today (believe it or not). In the meantime, even though if you're reading this blog you've probably seen this in an e-mail, on Facebook, on The Second Pass, or via the skywriter I hired yesterday: I direct your attention to 3 Quarks Daily, which is currently taking votes for its first annual Arts & Literature Prizes. One of the nominees is Carlene Bauer's Second Pass review of Flannery by Brad Gooch. If you haven't voted yet (and you can only vote once; so if you have, thanks), you can at this page. (The listing is towards the end, under "The Second Pass: Mary Flannery, Quite Contrary.")

And of course, go back and read the review, which starts like this:

In Brad Gooch’s Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, there is a striking photograph of O’Connor at two or three. She is sitting in a white dress, a white bow perched on her head, staring at an open book in her lap, one hand over her heart. There is a disconcertingly adult frown of concentration on her face — a frown disproportionate to her age and size. Looking at the picture long enough provokes the feeling that in a minute or two the child will turn to you, two fingers pointing skyward, as if it is 1327, not 1927, and solemnly declaim a line from the Gospels. The image is frightening and then suddenly funny — just like her stories. A caption for this picture of strangely serious infancy might be taken from O’Connor’s letters. “I was a very ancient twelve; my views at that age would have done credit to a Civil War veteran,” she told a friend. “I am much younger now than I was at twelve or anyway, less burdened. The weight of centuries lies on children, I’m sure of it.”