Every human being we have encountered or will ever encounter is a complex end result of multiple influences. Every entity that he is exposed to leaves an impression on his thought process and often times if we sit and analyze one particular person in detail, we surely find remnants of those who have impressed him in his actions and words. It is therefore possible to critique or appraise him with reference to his inspirations. This paper aims to dwell on the work of the distinguished fiction writer T.C Boyle and in doing so will highlight the influence of another prominent author, Flanner O Connor’s work on his writing.
It is quite natural for Boyle to draw inspiration from O’Connor’s work given the fact that she was among the authors he grew up reading . ‘Boyle grew up reading Kafka and Flannery O'Connor, and was taught in the 70s at the Iowa Writers' Workshop by John Irving and the "absolute master" John Cheever’. (Cox, 2012) It can be safely said that Boyle is in awe of O’Connor’s writing style which has been reviewed to be humorous with serious undertones. ‘Bergson’s notion that laughter is comparable with emotions applies splendidly to Flannery O Connor.’(Friedman, 290) O’Connor relies heavily on a dose of comicality between the characters. An example can be her book, ‘A good man is hard to find’, in which she combines with utmost perfection the element of humor with serious elements like irony. At the same time O’Connor emerges as a successful author merely on the basis of being able to create an aura of detachment from the characters, as if she is narrating the incidents of their lives from much afar as a casual observer. Though she successfully detaches herself from the characters and their faults, O’Connor dwells in great depth on their personalities, e.g she describes the children’s mother in ‘A good man is hard to find’ with perfection.
This writing style defines Boyle’s work too. When asked in an interview what makes people laugh, Boyle replied, ‘I have no idea. It’s just my natural way—to be funny. I don’t know why that is. But as I’ve said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers, for the most part.’ ’ (Adams, 2000) Boyle thus believes in the use of humor as a powerful tool to elicit positivity among the readers. He deems humor writers to be on a higher par than those employing the use of emotions as part of their writing style. According to him witty humour gives the writer complete control over the audience ‘because you can pull the rug out from under the unsuspecting reader. In Shakespeare’s comedies, we know that all will come right in the end, just as in the tragedies we know that things just aren’t going to work out, not this time, uh-uh. Evelyn Waugh does a fine job of making us laugh at horror—think of A Handful of Dust—but a writer like Flannery O’Connor, in stories like “Good Country People” or “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” can not only make you laugh aloud, but make you cringe too. And make you think. To engage your humor and your emotions, that’s quite a trick.’ (Adams, 2000) Through his work Boyle hopes to master this precarious balance that keeps the reader intrigued in reading by giving him the unexpected at every turn of the story. The reader is left wondering if the story intended to be tragic in essence or humorous to lift their spirits and the author thus succeeds in overwhelming his readers. Sometimes the mere amalgamation of these two strong emotions leaves them in a vulnerable state of being affected emotionally. This dogma of Boyle sheds light on not only his writing style but also a direct reference to O’Connor’s style which indicates the deep level of inspiration he draws from her work. This revering status that he gives to O’Connor in fact is the basic connection between the two authors as the former adopts the latter’s writing style, tone and overall aura.
Boyle is also ‘a lot like Flannery O’Connor in that many of his stories are "without a hero"—without any one character who necessarily elicits readers’ sympathies. This is very hard to pull off successfully’ (Rettberg,1998) but Boyle gets away with creating such ensemble casts quite brilliantly. This may be seen as a carefully planned move on his part for the lack of focus on one protagonist helps him mock all characters from afar rather than dwelling on the mundane details of only one’s personality. Following this, the reader too senses that he is not supposed to overly empathize with any one particular hero and holds all characters in equal esteem, giving each one the benefit of doubt. When asked in an interview how much he identifies with his characters and in what manner Boyle replied, ‘I guess I stand back from them. I love the comparison with Flannery O’Connor, who is one of my all-time heroes. I stand back from them as the god of my characters’ universe. I don’t usually identify much with them. They’re all an amalgam of people I might know, or that I’ve invented. The closest characters to me are somebody like the kid in "If the River Was Whiskey," or the narrator of "Greasy Lake," the narrator of "Back in the Eocene," but those are all fictions too.’ (Rettberg, 1998) Thus Boyle like O’Conmor treats his characters as if they never existed and are purely fiction,though he draws from real experiences in his own life to frame the character and identify with them to some extent. Detachment works best in a writing style like this because narrating in third person leaves the floor open to him for commenting. An example could be all the characters in his story "Big Game," where the characters are similar to all people’s mentality and thoughts in the general society and aren’t an exact replication of any one person in entirety. When his story ‘The Tortilla Curtain’ came out it received severe criticism by readers and journalists alike. Most seemed to agree in their reviews that Boyle had become too cynical and scornful of his characters. Boyle’s response to one critic was this that , ‘Well, the guy should read a little satire, he should read a little Evelyn Waugh, a little Kingsley Amis. That’s what satire does, it makes fun of certain behaviors in order to change them. A lot of people don’t quite get sophisticated humor anymore. It seems that we’re in this kind of grimly realistic phase, where if it’s not straightforward naturalism, people don’t think it’s any good, or don’t get it, and I’m trying to work with all different types of humor.’ (Rettberg, 1998) Really, if we view his work, we find traces of this ideology in his work such as in ‘The Champ," which has a deeper meaning hidden under a façade of continuous humor.This idea, Boyle seems to derive directly from O’Connor and it is seen in most of her work as a recurrent writing style. This kind of ideology is a recurrent style in O’Connor’s famous works such as ‘King Bee’ which has an appalling yet surprising kind of writing style , and the same pattern is seen in Boyle’s Tortilla Curtain, Riven Rock and other prominent books. Thus it can be said that Boyle’s writing style follows the same ideology and patterns that O’Connor’s works do and it is perhaps this likeness for her writing style that actually gave him his own distinct writing style.
Both authors tend to refrain from taking sides in their stories. It is not always necessary that the character the reader is empathizing with will get the best end of the bargain in the story. When researched, most of the readers in their reviews of Boyle’s work, ‘The Tortilla Curtain’ , seemed to disagree with this approach of not allotting the best to the protagonist. ‘I got frustrated with this novel because of the bad things that constantly happened to the protagonists and the in-your-face irony’ (Tufo, 2008) For some on the other hand it is a rather pleasant change from the usual array of books where the protagonist is bound to get the bets end of things. When Boyle refrains from taking sides and actually villianizes his characters he succeeds in extracting surprising reactions form the readers which they seem to appreciate at the end. Just like, both the couples in ‘The Tortilla Curtain’ Kyra and Delaney, and America and Candido both have good and bad elements which makes the readers verge on a balance between being completely sympathetic or unsympathetic to them. Both the couples in reality represent the multifaceted stereotypical attitudes of the society but because of the personification touches that Boyle adds, these mindsets emerge as being personality traits of actual characters who are brought to life again by Boyle’s mastery. Similarly Boyle’s superb hold of personification can be seen in the faults and eventual development of Delaney’s character in ‘The Tortilla Curtain’.While this character particularly has been criticized for being far off from reality it must be kept in mind that it embodies all the practical traits we find in the people of the society. For example most people wish to distance themselves from the responsibility and implications of decisions that they make. They do this by blaming their faults on other people and attributing the results of a decision they made on others. Delaney wants to blame the Mexicans in ‘The Tortilla Curtain’ when his car faces problems, when his house is in a scenario of going up in flames, for the gradual evolution of his neighbourhood, for his wife’s inadequacy and harassment. While this attitude is wrong, it is surely a direct representation of what the society usually does in times of crisis and Boyle manages to depict this beautifully.Similarly in O’Connor’s work, the centralized characters are not given the beneficial status too. ‘An embittered young woman, crippled by the loss of a leg (in a "hunting accident" when she was ten), who has changed her name from Joy to Hulga, is seduced by a hypocritical young Bible salesman who steals her wooden leg ("Good Country People"). (Oates, 2009) Thus this is another domain here the two authors intersect in their writings.
Another similarity in both the author’s work is this that they tend to dwell on the lifestyles and stories of real life characters who are not out of the ordinary and are hence relatable at some level despite the fictional aura. Boyle’s works listed below focus on mundane events of common people as can be seen. For example his book ‘Water Music’ focuses on English explorers and their experiences on the River Niger while his acclaimed book Riven Rock dwells on societal illnesses such as the schizophrenic collapse of Stanley McCormick. Another book, East Is East is about a Japanese seaman who tries very hard to adapt to the Americanization effect on him after he abandons his ship. Similarly, O’ Connor writes ‘by taking everyday type characters, people not particularly out of the ordinary, and showing to what extent sin and evil interacts in their lives..One of her stories, “Good Country People”, seeks to discover her portrayal of sin in a rural southern community for example.’ ("Flannery O’Connor and Sin.”)
Both the authors can be noted to have an element of pessimism and violence in their stories, dwelling on the misfortunes of people, races and ethnicities. ‘The characters in o connor’s fiction typically flail in semicomic, semi tragic misery as they strive to break free from their religious pasts and remake the world in their own images.’ (Allen 1976,114). Similarly, in an interview with Mc Murtie, Boyle admits to being pessimist and often anxious in the regard that he worries about the end of the world and every little thing affects him. When such anxiety and worry gets overwhelming he turns to his passion, writing as a solace. He considers the ancient natural disasters that brought about the end of species before us such as meteroids. Even though the chances of knowing about such a calamity have been greatly increased now by the advent of technology, he still considers the end in the future. He frets over pessimistic scenarios particularly the annihilation of humanity over natural disasters such as meteoroids. He seeks his life’s meaning and ponders over the purpose of humanity in general when it is all to be wiped away one day like other species were in the past. Such fears are transferred to his writing such as in the ‘Chicxulub’, a short story printed in this week's New Yorker. He admiringly juxtaposes his own phobias and pessimism such as a meteor strike with the dreadful scenario of the central man’s daughter being struck by a car. The protagonist then continues to narrate the unpredictability of death and the doomed ending coming closer all of a sudden. This musing is done with detachment and from afar but certainly must be critiqued in light of Boyle’s own fears. ‘ In 2000, Boyle published A Friend of the Earth, a novel set in 2025 in a California recently devastated by ecological collapse, where numerous animals have become extinct and rain falls heavily for the majority of the year. "Looking back," he says, "I should have probably moved the date forward to 2015. We live in a very different world to the one that 19th-century novelists lived in. It's a godless world, without hope." (Cox, 2012) Similar morbid events can be traced in O’Connor’ work. ‘Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964) came of age in a time when subtlety and "atmosphere" in short stories were fashionable—as in the finely wrought, understated stories of such classic predecessors as Anton Chekhov, Henry James, and James Joyce, and such American contemporaries as Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, Peter Taylor, and Jean Stafford—but O'Connor's plain-spoken, blunt, comic-cartoonish, and flagrantly melodramatic short stories were anything but fashionable. The novelty of her "acidly comic tales with moral and religious messages"—as Brad Gooch puts it in his new life of O'Connor—lay in their frontal assault upon the reader's sensibility: these were not refined New Yorker stories of the era in which nothing happens except inside characters' minds, but stories in which something happens of irreversible magnitude, often death by violent means.’ (Oates, 2009) In her work “A Good Man Is Hard to Find" an escaped juvenile delinquent called the Misfit massacres a Southern family in Georgia.In “Greenleaf” a widowed landlady with a superior attitude over her tenant farmer is horrendously killed by a rampaging bull. In "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" a scheming woman tricks a menacing one-armed tramp Shiftlet with her mad daughter who uses the opportunity to desert the girl and takes off with the old woman’s car. Violence can be seen in the book ‘Revelation’ in which a disturbed girl A mentally disturbed girl tosses the book she is reading at the head of a chatting woman in the same doctor’s waiting room as her because she can’t take her disgusting superior talk and attitude against "poor-white trash" anymore. Similarly in her work ‘Wise Blood’ O'Connor's writes about the horrific repentance that Hazel Motes pays by extorting out his eye after he claims himself to be the prophet of the church without Christ.
As elucidated in the paper, Boyle’s admiration of O’Connor’ work, is evident in his work which shares uncanny similarities to O’Connor’s work. The relation of his writing to O’Connor is one of inspiration, awe and resemblance and their works intersect at multiple junctions.
Works cited
- Adams, Elizabeth E. "T. Coraghessan Boyle, The Art of Fiction No. 161." Paris Review. No.155, Summer 2000. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- Allen, Charlotte. “Grace and the Grotesque”. Rev. of Flannery O'Connor's Sacramental Art by Flannery O'Connor; Susan Srigley; Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South by Flannery O'Connor; Ralph C. Wood. The Wilson Quarterly 29.1 (1976) :114.JSTOR. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- Cox, Tom. "TC Boyle: 'It's a Godless World, without Hope'" The Observer. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- Friedman, Melvin J. "By and about Flannery O'Connor." Rev. of The True Country: Themes in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor by Carter W. Martin; Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose,by Flannery O'Connor; Sally Fitzgerald; Robert Fitzgerald. Journal of Modern Literature 1.2 (1970-71): 290. JSTOR. Indiana University Press. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- "Flannery O’Connor and Sin." Flannery O'Connor and Sin. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- McMurtrie, John. "T.C. Boyle Has It All -- Money, Family, Hot Writing Career. But Is He Happy? Only When He's Not Worrying over Everything and Nothing." SFGate. N.p., 6 Mar. 2004. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- Oates, Joyce Carol. ""Large and Startling Figures": The Fiction of Flannery O'Connor."University of San Francisco (USF). N.p., 9 Apr. 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- Rettberg, Scott. "All about T. Coraghessan Resource Centre." Auteurs.net. N.p., 23 Nov. 1998. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- “T. Coraghessan Boyle." Enotes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
- Tufo, Margaret. "Re: The Tortilla Curtain." Web log comment. Goodreads. N.p., 9 Mar. 2008. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
