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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
Hazel Motes, I kind of/sort of/maybe a whole lot adore you.
Now I just need to take some time and figure out how to process everything that happened in this book and come to terms with the fact that I'll probably never fully do that.
Flannery O'Connor, you never cease to amaze me.
Now I just need to take some time and figure out how to process everything that happened in this book and come to terms with the fact that I'll probably never fully do that.
Flannery O'Connor, you never cease to amaze me.
dark
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I give Wise Blood 4.5 stars today and wholly expect that a month's reflection will pull that up to a full 5.
Wise Blood is sublime and ridiculous, serious and pathetic and disturbing all together and at once. Hazel Motes is as jaded as Holden Caulfield, as indulgent as Anna Karenina, and as spiritually misguided and self-indulgent as Ignatus J Reilly all rolled into one. The entire plot of the book is a joke at humanities expense, but every crazy action by any character reflects a scarily relatable depth of emotion.
It would be easy at first glance to assume that the extreme religious revulsion and despair that is variously refracted in the players and culture presented here is the commentary of an angry atheist, but as the plot grows more and more absurd, its characters grow deeper and deeper. But when one reflects that O'Conner was a devote Christian, the nature of the religious commentary becomes more complex.
As the atheist Camus rightly said "If there is anyone who can ask anything of the Christian, it is the Christian himself." O'Connor questions the nature of modern Christianity as peddled in the post war South. Even more specifically, it is a southern Catholic perspective on the many varieties of individualized Protestantism sold on the corners of any city street. Apart from this, it is a story of bitter searching, of rejecting Jesus, because of all he has been hijacked to symbolize. I think I've met a lot of people who have come to the same bitter conclusions about Jesus that Motes reached, though perhaps with less integrity, or at least less tragedy.
O'Connor's ability to recognize and flesh out the unbeliever's futile struggle against a chaotic universe and a strange God is approached with gentle understanding. The struggle is real.
If you'd like The Catcher In The Rye with a bit more absurdity, read this book.
If you'd like A Confederacy Of Dunces with a bit more hauntingly poignant violence, read this book.
Wise Blood is sublime and ridiculous, serious and pathetic and disturbing all together and at once. Hazel Motes is as jaded as Holden Caulfield, as indulgent as Anna Karenina, and as spiritually misguided and self-indulgent as Ignatus J Reilly all rolled into one. The entire plot of the book is a joke at humanities expense, but every crazy action by any character reflects a scarily relatable depth of emotion.
It would be easy at first glance to assume that the extreme religious revulsion and despair that is variously refracted in the players and culture presented here is the commentary of an angry atheist, but as the plot grows more and more absurd, its characters grow deeper and deeper. But when one reflects that O'Conner was a devote Christian, the nature of the religious commentary becomes more complex.
As the atheist Camus rightly said "If there is anyone who can ask anything of the Christian, it is the Christian himself." O'Connor questions the nature of modern Christianity as peddled in the post war South. Even more specifically, it is a southern Catholic perspective on the many varieties of individualized Protestantism sold on the corners of any city street. Apart from this, it is a story of bitter searching, of rejecting Jesus, because of all he has been hijacked to symbolize. I think I've met a lot of people who have come to the same bitter conclusions about Jesus that Motes reached, though perhaps with less integrity, or at least less tragedy.
O'Connor's ability to recognize and flesh out the unbeliever's futile struggle against a chaotic universe and a strange God is approached with gentle understanding. The struggle is real.
If you'd like The Catcher In The Rye with a bit more absurdity, read this book.
If you'd like A Confederacy Of Dunces with a bit more hauntingly poignant violence, read this book.
I didn't really like this book until I read the author's note. I'd like an expert or enthusiast to debrief it with me so I can learn to apprecitate its intricacies!
I've concluded O'Connor's morbid irony works better in novels than in short stories.
As with all of O'connor's stories, I have to think about this one for awhile.
Thoughts fermenting.
Thoughts fermenting.
This is a funny little book, which seems an incredibly flippant way to describe a modern classic, but there's nothing else I can really say. It's an ugly book, with no likeable characters or adventurous plot to hang on to, but you keep reading like you're watching a slow motion train wreck, waiting for the inevitable macabre resolution. O'Connor's obsession with themes of religiosity & Catholicism may be off-putting for some, but I did find what she had to say interesting. Her declaration of what the "correct" interpretation of Motes's behaviour is in the introduction is exactly the kind of authorial intervention that I can't stand, but it did allow me the space to think about the characters & their actions from different perspectives. No matter which way you look at it, this is a very bleak book.
a disillusioned veteran becomes a false prophet to preach nihilism and is foiled by his own nature. there's also a man in a gorilla suit and a mummified baby. it's kind of like a wackier christian version of west's miss lonelyhearts. i was expecting heavy moralizing about the inevitability of god in the vein of gk chesterton, and to be clear it is kinda doing that, but this felt more earnest in that she was grappling with her own feelings as opposed to a writing a morality play. you can kinda tell it started as 4 short stories as the lines are still there but it kind of works with how odd the story feels. I liked it more than I thought I would, but I don't think it's especially curious about much beyond her relationship with god and poverty, at least not intentionally. It reminded me of this bit from catch-22,
"'I thought you didn't believe in God.'
'I don't,' she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. 'But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him to be.'"
"'I thought you didn't believe in God.'
'I don't,' she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. 'But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him to be.'"
As weird as this book was, I still enjoyed it because of how excellent of a writer Flannery O'Connor was. The symbolism that she used in this book was absolutely spectacular, and her characters were very interesting to study, even if they weren't very likable.
Never in my life have I been so disturbed yet so fascinated by a novel. O'Connor blasts your senses with religious overtones while simultaneously making you wonder if any character is sane. It is pure madness between these pages. Pure. Madness.