Wise Blood: A Novel
by Flannery O'Connor
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Book Summary Information
Author: Flannery O'ConnorBrand: Spring Arbor/Ingram
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-03-06
ISBN: 0374530637
Number of pages: 248
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780374530631
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Wise Blood: A Novel
Book Review: "Is that were you escaped from?"
Summary: 5 Stars
In a letter to a friend, Flannery O' Connor noted that most Christian writers have the tendency to turn their writing into "apologetic fiction"--meaning, in short, that the majority of Catholic novelists feel an undue obligation toward the public to soften (or change entirely the actual doctrines of Original Sin, Redemption, etc for the average reader's benefit. Though this letter dates from May of 1963, O' Connor's prophetic remark has only been proven more legitimate with time. As a Roman Catholic I have more than once wanted to vomit reading the well-intentioned attempts of both priests and lay people who do not write books but smear frosting on the mysterious, quite serious matters of Christian spirituality. This phenomenon is the result of believers who feel the constant need to appease the mass of readers who instinctually reject Christianity, often for reasons unbeknownst to themselves.
What makes "Wise Blood" so special is that within the scope of 131 terrifying (and drop dead hilarious) pages we learn that Miss O' Connor intends to make us familiar with a different company of Christians indeed. Haze Motes may be disturbed, but he is as uncompromising a believer/non believer as they come. A boy who once put rocks in his shoes as penance for sin, he is now as intent on getting that ragged, shadowy figure moving in the trees out of his mind and soul by any means necessary. O' Connor puts him in the town of Taulkinham--a Southern version of Dante's Inferno.
Here he encounters every manner of depravity: prostition ("Momma don't care if you ain't a preacher!") false witness to God (Asa Hawks,a "blind" preacher with a news clipping that does not include his whole history) and Sabbath Lily Hawks, who is often misread as being a mere whore when in fact she is one of the more sympathetic and lovable characters in the story. Perhaps the most hopeless of this crew is Enoch Emery, a deranged adolescent who is disowned by his father and who wanders the streets merely to be around people. He is so desperately lonely that one point he steals a Gorilla suit from the local museum just to endear himself to the general population.
Out of all the false prophets and madness, Haze is the most fiercely lucid and his anger is actually righteous, for all his talk about "The Church of Christ Without Christ". Each attempt he makes at becoming a horrible sinner fires him in the exact opposite direction. One might say he is an Albigensian of sorts, a Christian turned inside out, but apart from one appalling act he is never quite far enough from Christ to earn that title. His sin and blasphemy fuel his madness and vice versa, until...
While to most his act of redemption will seem like nothing but madness, it is no less an authentic act of moral outrage than Sophocles' Oedipus. The difference is that Oedipus was acting on a principle of despair, whereas the hope Haze never could not leave behind broils to the breaking point and shows him exactly what he is.
The point is that for Haze, Christ is all or nothing. There is no middle of the road, no middle class preening, no posing or falsehood. There is not one bit of falsehood in his being.
This certainly ranks up there with the greatest literature produced by Faulkner as far as the climate of the South goes. This is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, perhaps more relevant now than ever.
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