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Summary: Wrenching comedy & intense violence give birth to grace
Review: I borrowed these words from Robert Brinkmeyer, Jr who wrote the book, 'The Art & Vision of Flannery O'Connor' which I read side by side with 'Wise Blood' and the Short stories that he refers to. I am a painter and a southerner, influenced by all the forces Flannery so brilliantly writes about.I am awestruck by her brilliance, her faith, her genius at challenging her reader as she challenged her own faith, her own prejudices. I am humbled to have even read her work. We suffered quite theloss when she died at 39. Ah, Flannery... 'Cheers' to you. You have given me the gift of new visual imagery and challenged me tonew realms of the spirit.
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Summary: This grotesque parody shows a man's struggle w/ Christ.
Review: I found this book enteraining as well a deep insight into one person's interpretation of a person's struggle with God and Christ.
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Summary: Wise Blood
Review: 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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Summary: Wise Blood
Review: 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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Summary: The Flannery O'Connor Experience
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Wise Blood and recommend it on account of its imaginative storyline and talented author. This book is worth reading and will not be forgotten.
Flannery O'Connor's ingenious use of dark humor and twisted religion sets the tone in her novel, Wise Blood. With characters such as Hoover Shoats, Enoch Emery, and Sabbath Hawks, O'Connor paints a vivid picture of the South in the bleak post-World War II and pre-Civil Rights time period. Wise Blood examines the religious spectrum that was present in southern cities and the interaction of these ideals. While there are some disturbing events, and characters, this novel has a fascinating view of life in all of its absurdities.
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Summary: The Flannery O'Connor Experience
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Wise Blood and recommend it on account of its imaginative storyline and talented author. This book is worth reading and will not be forgotten.
Flannery O'Connor's ingenious use of dark humor and twisted religion sets the tone in her novel, Wise Blood. With characters such as Hoover Shoats, Enoch Emery, and Sabbath Hawks, O'Connor paints a vivid picture of the South in the bleak post-World War II and pre-Civil Rights time period. Wise Blood examines the religious spectrum that was present in southern cities and the interaction of these ideals. While there are some disturbing events, and characters, this novel has a fascinating view of life in all of its absurdities.
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Summary: A friend and peer of Walker Percy and Shelby Foote
Review: I used to think that Flannery O'Connor was a man. An Irishman who somehow was labeled one of the great souther writerss. But after I read the "Correspondence of Walker Percy and Shelby Foote" I see her peers considered this young Savannah Girl a literary giant. Her name was not an attempt to mask her identify as was the case with George Eliot, the female author of Middlemarch. Flannery, evidently, is female.Wise Blood is a novel more likely to have occured in the hilly piedmont or mountains than the coast of Georgia. For a dark religious novel set around Savannah or Beaufort would no doubt mention voodoo as it is and has been practiced by the Blacks there. (Dr. Buzzard of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is only the most famous example.) Wise Blood starts off kind of boring as its characters slowly are unwound before us. The major characters are holy-roller type street preachers. The type you might find speaking in tongues at any of a thousand Pentacostal churches spread across the South. Higher up in the hills these same holly rollers would be sporting rattlesnakes. These snake handlers say their faith in god protects them from the serpant. That is the literal interpretation of the bible that define the fundamental Christain. These verbatim dogma are the same beliefs for the characters of Flannery O'Connor. Yet O'Connor's holy man is a Christain without Christ. He preaches at the street corner of a Chruch with no Jesus. Blasphemy is the way to salvation he says. The rivalry between this preacher and another preacher points to another Southern theme--the dangerous violence that lurks beneath so many seemingly pious Southern souls. The novel ends in a ghastly fashion that still haunts me today. I haven't felt the same horror about a book since I finished John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. (By the way, Steinbeck did not like the South and said so in "Travels with Charlie".) But this is no horror story--rather it is a great work that disturbs the conscious. Isn't that the true definition of art?
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Summary: Strange at first, but great at the end
Review: I was required to read this novel for my English class. I thought it was going to be another one of those boring books, but I was surprised to find it far from boring. At first, the characters seem excessively weird and there doesn't seem to be a point to the story. However, if you have proir knowlege to religion, you will probably enjoy this book. Among all the absurd characters of Haze, Enoch, Hawks, and Mrs. Flood there is a point that makes their stangeness make sense. I loved this novel because it was very different from other books that I have read before. Not only does it give you a challenge to discover what all the nonsense means, but it is hilarious at certain times too. I had to laugh the time that Enoch dressed up in a gorilla suit, the thought of him makes me laugh over and over. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in something out of the ordinary that is full of wit, humor, and radical characters.
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Summary: SHEER GENIUS
Review: I've never read a piece of American literature as profound as WISE BLOOD. Even though it was first published in early '50s, the book will certainly shock you all the way through with its violent images and brutal characters. BUT this American masterpiece is still helplessly beautiful. And also amazingly funny. After reading WISE BLOOD, you will never be able to shake it out of your mind as long as you live - GUARANTEED!! Flannery O'Connor is god!
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Summary: Religious fiction at its best
Review: If you're looking for religious literature in the hope and comfort vein, skip Wise Blood. I do, however, think that feel-good Christians on chummy terms with God might do well to remember that, according to a verse from Hebrews, "it's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God." This is what happens to Hazel Motes, about as unsympathetic a protagonist as you're ever likely to clap eyes onto (the rest of the characters, no-hopers all, won't warm your heart much, either). In a book that's both wildly funny and profoundly thought-provoking, O'Connor pries up the rock of conventional religious belief and examines what lies underneath it. Read it.
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