Not only was she a skilled (and published) cartoonist, but Flannery O’Connor was obsessed with birds, and raised over 100 peacocks (in addition to ducks, hens, geese and any other kind of bird she could get her hands on) at her family’s farm, her ancestral farm, Andalusia, in Georgia. Her peacocks popped up more than once in her work, including in this passage from her short story “The Displaced Person”:
“What a beauti-ful birrrrd!” the priest murmured.
“Another mouth to feed,” Mrs. McIntyre said, glancing in the peafowl’s direction.
“And when does he raise his splendid tail?” asked the priest.
“Just when it suits him,” she said. “There used to be twenty or thirty of those things on the place but I’ve let them die off. I don’t like to hear them scream in the middle of the night.”
“So beauti-ful,” the priest said. “A tail full of suns,” and he crept forward on tiptoe and looked down on the bird’s back where the polished gold and green design began. The peacock stood still as if he had just come down from some sun-drenched height to be a vision for them all….
Comments (14)
whoo go kafka
Flannery’s my girl. Someone in my neighborhood has a peacock farm and few things are more pleasant than seeing one stroll across your yard in the morning.
Incidentally, Sylvia Plath’s father was an entomologist who specialized in bees.
Very nice !
And here I thought the Emily Dickinson entry would be about her love of drowning kittens. Also does pornography really count as a hobby?
None of these hobbies surprise me in the least bit. P
[...] Fonte | Flaworwire.com [...]
yawn…
porn is a ‘hobby’?
[...] cause to be angry. * Emily Dickenson baked! Franz Kafka collected porn! See what other authors did in their spare time. *** Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to say hi in the comments! I’ll see you guys [...]
[...] cause to be angry. * Emily Dickenson baked! Franz Kafka collected porn! See what other authors did in their spare time. *** Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to say hi in the comments! I’ll see you guys [...]
I guess the photo of Kafka with a dog makes sense now.
Kroatisches Küstenpatent
Poohsticks, I played that as a kid. I wasn’t aware it had a name.
I have fond memories of the game.
[...] let off a little steam now and then. Those oh-so-important mental health days might be filled with hobbies (from baking to beekeeping) or drinking (every writer’s default hobby), or just plain [...]
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