When In Rome, Do As You Done in Milledgeville!

Dear Snouts,

That’s scary enough. Just before visiting Andalusia. As you can tell, I was Ready-2-Go.

So far I’ve been relatively unsuccessful in my attempt to gather a collection of snouts. The few people I’ve asked have declined. I got Amber’s snout only after a pathetic plea, after which she indignantly turned her head to the side so I could get a profile shot. It’s a good one, too. One woman, an O’Connor scholar, told me that she’d rather not draw attention to her snout, because her snout comes from a long line of pre-Civil War snouts that happen to be grotesquely large. She did, however, recommend the snouts at the local Milledgeville convenience stores.

“They’ve got pig noses around here,” she said, turning away so that I couldn’t gawk at her nose any longer. (I’ll be visiting Piggly Wiggly soon.)

But I did find something spectacular on my search for snouts. His name is Flossy, a half donkey, half stallion. I saw him at Andalusia, the place where Flannery O’Connor wrote A Good Man Is Hard To Find, her two novels, and Everything That Rises Must Converge. He was outside, eating some grass in a pasture just beside the main house. He was brown, with donkey’s ears and a horse snout and what I’ve been told is a donkey’s rear end. On his back was a light brown feathery line of hair sticking up like a mohawk all the way to his head. Louise Florencourt, O’Connor’s cousin who still lives downtown in the house where O’Connor lived once when she was little, told me that she’s the one who takes care of Flossy every day and that Flossy is a direct descendent of Equinox, the mule O’Connor gave to her mother, Regina Cline, on Regina’s birthday. Isn’t he wonderful? (The picture isn’t the good one from Amber’s camera. I’ll get that one to you next week. Still, you can get an idea.)

Louise also told me some of her fears about Andalusia becoming another Graceland. Actually, her words were:

“I just hope they don’t turn it into a Graceland.”

Her face assumed an expression I’m sure would have been O’Connor’s, her features remarkably similar to O’Connor photos. I was already awe-struck. She talked about how she didn’t have any power over the board at Andalusia, and she had even given up her post because she didn’t want to stick around to see what became of everything. In case you aren’t in the ‘loop,’ O’Connor scholars everywhere would like Louise to release the rest of O’Connor’s letters to the public, but Louise, for some reason I’m not aware of, doesn’t want these letters out. When I heard this in the past, I agreed with the scholars, but seeing Florencourt in front of me, with her bright pink top and big black bow tied around her neck, talking about the “gift” of Catholicism, I couldn’t help but feel for her. Sure, it’s good to have all the references available for scholarship, but isn’t there a line that we just shouldn’t cross for the sake of scholarship? I mean, why do we need to know of everything O’Connor has written? What about mystery? What about taking the author’s word for it? Why do we need all of her letters to understand her fiction? I understand the scholars’ arguments, but maybe we should, as O’Connor has suggested many times in her typical New Critic fashion, let the work speak for itself. Maybe that stuff’s just not my cup of tea.

Speaking of tea, I’m planning on eating brunch at a teahouse with an MFA grad student. Her name is Christine and she’s a poet. She moved to Milledgeville, GA from NY and she’s afraid of the lizards on her back porch. Here’s her snout. I’m also going to visit O’Connor’s grave, and then we’re off to Erwin, TN to discover the mystery of the hanging elephant. It’s going to be tough, but I’ve got a lot of important questions to ask the people at the Hanging Elephant Gift Shop, and I feel spiritually recharged by my visit to Andalusia and by the presence of rue O’Connor blood. I’d like to have gotten inside Florencourt’s house, a feat, I’ve heard from several scholars, next to impossible, but I’m content with just meeting the amazing Florencourt. Even if I don’t know the answer to the great Letters debate, I can at least rest assured that I’ve seen a different perspective on the whole thing than most O’Connor buffs. If you ever get a chance to talk with her, I strongly suggest you do. Just hearing her mention O’Connor is breathtaking. Good night, sweet Snouts.