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Title: Wise Blood : A Novel by Flannery O'Connor ISBN: 0-374-50584-5 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1962 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.26 (34 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An American Genius' Mystical First Effort
Comment: Hazel Motes, protagonist of "Wise Blood," is an accidental prophet. Though the novel precedes the much better "The Violent Bear It Away," it can be read as a sort of sequel to that novel - what might have happened to young Tarwater if we were allowed to see his adventures in the city.
Motes goes around the city in the evenings, preaching the Church Without Christ, a church in which the individual is free from the 'bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus' - freed from tradition, from dogma, from traditional notions of salvation. Motes preaches the coming of a new Jesus - a contemporary that modern (or post-modern) people can relate to.
In his quest, Motes is pursued by two individuals, Sabbath Hawks, the daughter of a blind false prophet, and Enoch Emery, a wannabe disciple. Emery wants very badly to find that new Jesus and receive a revelation from him.
Full of strange and compelling, if somewhat distant characters, including a small mummy and a gorilla suit, "Wise Blood" does not have the plot flow of "The Violent Bear It Away," and it is a little more haphazard, but it is a wonderful first glance into Flannery O'Connor's genius fictional mind, possessed with finding Christ in existentialism with or without Kierkegaard.
Rating: 5
Summary: Crazy.
Comment: What an insane book. It's really quite incredible. Flannery O'Connor found all the problems of society, injected them into absurdly weird yet decidedly realistic scenarios and made a book about it.
This book deals with obsession, self worth, and generally a whole bunch of people trying to escape themselves, or at least what they think defines themselves. And to boot, it can be terribly funny in a twisted way. Flannery O' Connor rocks.
It's about Hazel Motes and the various well defined characters that ram into his life, and he doesn't even notice them. There's the ... blind preacher's daughter, and the suburban washup teenager, and the blind preacher, who all play pivotal roles in Motes' existence, though again, he doesn't realize it. Hazel pretty much goes through the book living in his own world, even though he hates his head also. Motes, after all, is a strange character who is desperately seeking peace with himself, and as you'll see he never fails in punishing himself. He's obsessed with Christ and purity, yet he loathes Christianity and purity. So he creates the Church of Christ Without Christ, and as he tries to promote it, a series of terrifying and subtle events occur that will make you bugeyed with wonder and horror and disgust. He descends from what you would think is a good proper religious fanatic, to a degraded near maniacal individual, and that's what really captivates you, though O'Connor provides ample sideshows. And then, the end is as strange and satisfying as the rest of the book.
This is a strange crazy incredibly captivating and overwhelmingly intense book that only lasts a hundred or so pages, but after you'll probably run to Jane Austen. But then in their own funny ways, both Pride and Prejudice and Wise Blood are full of that irony that makes us think about what a bunch of hypocrites we can be to ourselves sometimes.
Rating: 1
Summary: Wise Blood
Comment: I had to force myself to finish this book. After reading two-thirds I felt compelled to finish it simply in hopes of finding some redeeming value to the time I'd already invested. Upon finishing the book (unlike the insightful and eloquent analysis by the Reader in New England) I shut the book and said, "This is the stupidest book I have ever read!" After calming down a little I began to wonder if perhaps Wise Blood represented Flannery's life and emotions? One has to imagine being stricken with a debilitating disease that eventually robbed her of life at a young age must have tortured her to some degree. She must have wondered where is God in all this without being able to deny Him. Could Hazel represent Flannery? A life of seeming despair, allowed to waist away slowly in a drainage ditch only to be finally found yet treated with complete disregard and with utter contempt by the police sent to rescue and redeem Haze (Flannery) by thumping him (her) on the head with a death blow without any apparent feelings. Was Flannery making a statement about being treated thus by God? Is it possible Flannery used Wise Blood as a cathartic for her own emotions towards God for the cards she'd been dealt? I don't say that judgmentally in the least. It just makes sense now that I am calm enough to think about it. I'm hardly qualified to dish out such psycho-babble. Basically, I still agree with the New England reader in terms of regretting the read. Perhaps this story will have more meaning should I face personal suffering and loss like Flannery. Faith does not make one immune to the multi-levels of agony. This story was agonizing.
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Title: The Violent Bear It Away : A Novel by Flannery O'Connor ISBN: 0374505241 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1960 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor ISBN: 0374515360 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1971 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy ISBN: 0375701966 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Mystery and Manners : Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor, Sally Fitzgerald, Robert Fitzgerald ISBN: 0374508046 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1969 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor ISBN: 0156364654 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 23 August, 1977 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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