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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
There was definitely something I didn't get about this book.
dark
funny
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I held off on listening to this because I wasn't a fan of the movie when I saw it years ago. But that was a mistake. This is amazing. It is much funnier than I was expecting although it is extremely dark. The only (extremely) minor issues I had was "wise blood" being used in the text and her using the word cadaverous twice (it is a great word but once per novel is enough - it loses its effectiveness with multiple uses). Bronson Pinchot did an incredible job with the audio.
Seemed dark. Wasn’t in the mood post-election.
Weird book. Gotta say, though, that I was pleasantly surprised at how good Bronson Pinchot's narration is. It seems ol' Balki Bartokomous found a new niche.
Wise Blood is an odd story curiously told. The language is raw, the ideas and images strange. After finishing Flannery O'Connor's first novel, I learned that it contains material published as short stories in other locations. Which makes sense, because for me the incidents in the novel didn't fully cohere. Nonetheless, it was engaging, a memorably weird reading experience.
This strange book is populated with sad, ignorant characters with few redeeming qualities and massive overdoses of all that is wrong with religion and nothing that is right. But I somehow find her writing fascinating.
I think this is the second or third time I've attempted this book, and this time I made it all the way through. I love O'Connor's short stories, and last summer visited O'Connor's old farm in GA and wished, wished deeply there was more O'Connor for me to read the first time, which really only left the novels, and still it took me another six months to get started.
My conclusion? Those people who say O'Connor is a better short story writer than novelist have it right. There are elements here, some of which are those same elements that make her stories sparkle-- cracked and weird descriptions of things that you're all too likely to see in real life, characters that are wracked and tormented by voices larger than themselves, some real wickedness from man to man, only some of it unintentional. But in the process of writing a novel, it's like O'Connor loses the determining elements of size and scope and then goes a little off the rail, loses the power of judgment.
Here, the narrative is a bit like a short story, only for three characters instead of one (I'm taking the "blind" minister as the protagonist that third story, though of course you could disagree-- really it's Hazel and the boy from the zoo, and maybe the preacher's daughter.... but this ambiguity proves me point). And the two or three stories start out parallel, or least propping each other up and feeding each other. But that drifts apart, after a while, so we've got a couple-three different stories going, without a clear sense of what's at stake.
The ending more or less just peters out-- the longish epilogue of Hazel and his landlady probably isn't really necessary, and I wonder about the theft of the tiny man... O'Connor writes well-observed, dynamic, funny sentences that you want to read, but here at least they don't seem to be going anywhere in particular. Maybe by summer I'll give "The Violent Bear It Away" a shot, or maybe I'll wait another decade.
My conclusion? Those people who say O'Connor is a better short story writer than novelist have it right. There are elements here, some of which are those same elements that make her stories sparkle-- cracked and weird descriptions of things that you're all too likely to see in real life, characters that are wracked and tormented by voices larger than themselves, some real wickedness from man to man, only some of it unintentional. But in the process of writing a novel, it's like O'Connor loses the determining elements of size and scope and then goes a little off the rail, loses the power of judgment.
Here, the narrative is a bit like a short story, only for three characters instead of one (I'm taking the "blind" minister as the protagonist that third story, though of course you could disagree-- really it's Hazel and the boy from the zoo, and maybe the preacher's daughter.... but this ambiguity proves me point). And the two or three stories start out parallel, or least propping each other up and feeding each other. But that drifts apart, after a while, so we've got a couple-three different stories going, without a clear sense of what's at stake.
The ending more or less just peters out-- the longish epilogue of Hazel and his landlady probably isn't really necessary, and I wonder about the theft of the tiny man... O'Connor writes well-observed, dynamic, funny sentences that you want to read, but here at least they don't seem to be going anywhere in particular. Maybe by summer I'll give "The Violent Bear It Away" a shot, or maybe I'll wait another decade.
Strange, dark and incredibly smart, which could be the review for any work of Flannery O’Connor. I imagine it deserves a higher ranking but I can’t say that I really enjoyed it or even fully understood it.