Rating: 
Summary: A superlative character study
Review: In this story by Flannery O'Conner, the plot contains an emotional depth and fullness of character that is no longer found in literature. "The Church of Christ without Christ" is an amusing and creative attempt by the character to combat his feelings for Christianity. When his first and only disiple attempts to turn his philosophy into a money making scam, it is a perfect example of how any idea, even a poor one, can be taken and perverted into a profit making scheme. This occurence, and many others in the novel, are what make it a classic.
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Summary: Devices of Wise Blood and their meanings
Review: In Wise Blood, O'Connor uses ghastly imagery, foreshadowing,and reoccurring symbolism, to facilitate her criticizing of: the self proclaimed prophets who preach solely for the financial gratification, the disintegration of a hopeless society infatuated with materialism, and those who foolishly run away from the only thing that can save them. O'Connor foreshadows Haze's clash with Christian theology when his early childhood is exposed. Not only born into a Christian family, Haze is expected to become a circuit preacher like his grandfather who" traveled in a Ford automobile."(10) This foresight is evident when Hazel purchases the Essex and becomes the traveling minister of a "Church Without Christ." Clearly stating that "he knew by the time he was twelve years old he was going to be a preacher,"(10) O'Connor foreshadows Hazel's quest for fulfilling the role administered to him. When he becomes the preacher of his self proclaimed church, Hazel attempts to refute any significance his dead ancestors had placed on Redemption. Another foreshadowing, this one of death can be presented through Hazel's early experiences with coffins. The first being when he had seen his dead grandfather in a casket, his "two younger brother; one died in infancy and was put in a small box. The other fell in front of a mowing machine when he was seven." These horrific occurrences provide a more insightful view on Hazel's character and explain both his unappreciation for life and hostility towards afterlife. "For a second he thought it was a skinned animal and then he saw it was a woman. She was fat and she had a face like an ordinary woman except there was a mole on the corner of her lip, that moved when she grinned , and one on her side."(32) is an example how foreshadowing and ghastly imagery are used to illustrate the perverse affliction of lust Hazel's father experiences and the instances where pure tragedy can leave the impressionable abandoned in an immature world. Wise Blood is an extrordinary example of great American literature, not only for its dynamics devices and messages, but for its entertainment value as well.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: It was a very good book and I have enjoyed reading it. She is very vivid about her writing; it makes one feel he/she is here. I think it shows the "unseen" side of religion
Rating: 
Summary: Borderline
Review: Knowing the classical signicficance of this novel, I tried to like it...I really did. Then I figured out that I wasn't supposed to like it. Wise Blood is not one of those books that leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, and it's not supposed to.This novel follows the story of young Hazel Motes, the confused grandson of a southern preacher. Throughout his adventures, Motes forms the idea that only the bad know Jesus-and in order to avoid Jesus one must avoid sin. Hazel is doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Hazel's beliefs leads to the creation of a church without Christ. Motes preaches this religion from the street corners, and it is here that he meets Asa Hawks, a street preacher, and his 15 year old daughter Lily Sabbath. Naturally, the differing beliefs of Asa and Hazel lead to problems. Flannery O'Connor wrote a novel full of meaning but a little lacking in life. The one-dimensional characters eventually dulled me to the point of sleep and I had trouble getting into the book. The real mystery here is why O'Connor, who shows evidence of excellent writing in her other works, would take a subject that she felt so strongly about and bury her message in a dull story with incredibly bland characters.
Rating: 
Summary: I just couldn't relate
Review: Let me start by saying that I read this book because O'Connor was on a list of authors that a friend of mine felt I had to read. Not that my feelings would have been any different if I had simply picked this up in a library and decided to give it a try.
I'll start by being painfully blunt. I really, truly hated this book. And I'm not a person to say that I hate a book lightly. As a matter of fact, I think this is the only book I've ever felt that I really hated. When I finished the last page, I didn't just want to never see it again, I wanted to burn it.
That said, I'll explain.
I didn't understand the characters at all. Not even once, not even a little. Nothing that any of them ever did made sense to me. I couldn't fathom their motivations, or understand why they would choose the way they did.
Not only that, but I really didn't like them either. Now, that's not enough to make me dislike a book. I can live with the fact that a book can be good with characters that I truly don't like. But in this case I think it was a failing of the author to make the character believable. They barely even seemed human.
The plot was as much a mystery. All I'll say about it is, I didn't understand, and I'm fairly certain that I never will.
And the ending! I can't stand a book that drops a character without so much as a 'see you soon'. Suddenly, it seemed that all the other people disappeared. And I suppose from Haze's perspective, they had, but that doesn't mean that we should suffer for it!
I found the ending profoundly disturbing. The last few pages were horrid. I can't understand an author who could treat her characters with such callous disregard! Stories do not always have a happy ending, or an end that makes sense, but this book had neither for no apparent reason!
And to put the end of a characters life that we've been (unwillingly, on my part) following for the whole book as almost an afterthought in the middle of a paragraph! I thought it was apalling. This person may not have been important in the big picture, but for some reason he was supposed to be important to us. To put an end to him like that was just disgusting.
So, to sum up, I would not read this book again without a gun to my head, and I regret ever having picked it up. Has it changed me at all? Yes, I suppose it has. I will never blindly assume that all books have at least one good thing about them again. I will never assume that just because I love to read I will be able to understand at least one facet of a character.
And if this sounds melodramatic, or shallow, that's fine. This book did affect me profoundly, but for what it lacked rather than what it had. And if that is what the author was going for . . . well, I think I'm much happier thinking that it was all some sort of terrible mistake.
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Summary: Theologically sound existentialism
Review: Like Hazel Motes, the main character of this book, who in thoroughly seeking to deny Christ in every which way, only ends up affirming Christ in a resonant, disturbingly real and existential way, this book works the same for those who both like and dislike it. This book, as a whole work, speaks a WORD. Those who toss it aside as "boring" or "ingratiating" only affirm this.
When I first read it, I had the same "ingratiating" feeling for a while. One thought that definitely occured to me was that I had never read anything like it before. It doesn't seek to thrill, empower the emotions, or to bring any "explorations" of "social issues". It is so grounded in the very unpleasant falleness of a southern town, that the movements that occur therein take on a kind of universal importance and impact; right down the most immature of dirty deeds there is an ATTENTION in the writing, for want of a better word; the "town" seems to fade away and a larger stage takes its place. Or it becomes like a small stage in the hands of larger one. No matter how much it turns to hell, no matter how much the characters go after their petty, selfish appetites, there is something there, hovering over and with, something that is not hell, but is felt as an absence, waiting. One thing that helps this notion in the book is the fact that the sins that take place do not have any staggering, overpowering decadence to them. They have a pathetic, last-minute meanness and rotten pettiness to them.
This is not a nihilistic yarn. Neither is it merely obsessed with absurdity, though absurdity does abound. This is not Kafka.
This book, as a creation, has such a homespun feeling, but completely devoid of flippancy. It is so thoroughly a piece of genuine craftmanship that it makes Evelyn Waugh look a little pale. It's hard to describe. Almost as though it were too simple for our conditioning and our complexities. It is really a novel apart from other novels. Reading this book is sort of like watching a long train sliding across a horizon. You look at the cargo, and there are brief flashes between the cars. And then something occurs that is like an understatement, but bigger than what you expected. The last car, the caboose, goes across your vision, and it underlines the horizon you now see in the absence of the train. In a word, the book, at least I think in part is about HOPE. Not superfical hope that gaurantees something with a complete picture. That would not be hope. But RADICAL hope. The hope that St. Paul speaks of. But the way this book gets this across is not in any way pushy. There are not very many books that are as undeniable as this one, yet without any definite words to explain why it is undeniable. Wiseblood is a novel alive unlike any other.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Up to Snuff
Review: O'Connor is one of the great American short story writers, but she is no novelist. This book might have been titled "Wise Not to Read."
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Summary: A dark, slap-in-the-face tragacomedy of man against God!
Review: O'Connor's use of man's struggle with religion is strange in an etheral/religious way, but at the same time, it is universal; it's message, whether we choose to accept it or not, applies to all of humanity. Regardless if we are old or young or of middle age, we have at one point questioned God, embraced God or pushed that life force away. And that is what her stories and novels represent: salvation through something that is greater than ourselves. That greatness is either our inner spirit, the earth's spirit or something beyond our realm. But salvation for a singular belief often comes at a cost: death, etc.. That is the essence of Wise Blood, where we are introduced to Hazel Motes of Eastrod, TNN who founds The Church Without Christ.Hazel is different (religiously speaking) in that he chooses to live his life not according to the norms of society. When he finds that he has followers to his church, he discards them, does not appreciate them. When one founds a church or an organization, the sole purpose should be is to get followers. But that is not the case with Hazel Motes. He wants to be separate from humanity. Period! He will go to many extremes to live his life the way he sees fit. Flannery O' Connor's work goes beyond religion. She merely uses it as a catalyst for the expression of other ideas. It is for that sole reason that her work will stick out in American literature.
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Summary: Fascinating symbolism in "Wise Blood"
Review: Recently discharged from the army and without a family, a young man named Hazel Motes arrives in a strange city. He is so completely obsessed by the desire to reject Jesus that, taking inspiration from the actions of a wayward street preacher, he starts the "Church Without Christ," promising no salvation and no kingdom of heaven. With this premise of idolatry turned upside down, O'Connor spins a vaguely abstract tale employing haunting Kafka-esque symbols and images to illustrate her narrative. Hazel thinks of his deceased family members while trying to sleep in the coffin-like berch in the train. He drives out to the country in his newly purchased car and sees a message of salvation, conflicting naggingly with his own beliefs, written on a roadside rock. His newfound acquaintance, Enoch Emery, shows him the object of his fascination, a mummified boy in a museum. The face of a grinning woman reflects eerily in the glass that encases the boy; later the face appears in the window of Hazel's car during a dream. Enoch, whose "wise blood" tells him what to do, finds dread in a picture of a moose that hangs on the wall in his room and donates what he has decided is the "new jesus" to Hazel so that he (Enoch) can return happily to a state of primitivism in a gorilla costume. For such a short novel, "Wise Blood" is incredibly complex and is one of the most inexplicably fascinating books I have read.
Rating:
Summary: The novel was compelling, it had amazing imagery.
Review: Street Preaching: Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's first novel, was published in 1952. It introduced Flannery to the literary world, and quickly made her style one of the most recognized of all time. She writes of deep Southern towns, where one gets lost in musty streets and dark sinister alleys, encountering equally musty and sinister characters. This book set the path, on which her subsequent novels follow. Wise Blood begins by introducing the main character, a discharged service man named Hazel Motes, who finds a new home in a large city. Hazel discovers the wonderful world of street preaching and creates a church titled, the 'Church Without Christ.' His attitude toward life and those in it is cynical and almost absurdly opinionated. This demeanor shapes the story to the point where the reader believes his immoral actions and opinions are reasonable. During the first day of his new life in the city, Hazel meets new characters in similarly desolate states of being. Enoch Emery portrays a ravaged young man whose blood tells him what to do and often dominates him to a point where Enoch can no longer control his actions. Asa Hawks, a street preacher, accompanied by his daughter, Lily Sabbath Hawks, tries to change Haze's life for the better, but ends up only confusing him. Hoover Shoat becomes Haze's one and only prophet, but later turns against him and changes to his street-preaching competition. The characters weave a bizarre story, to which Flannery provides the necessary details to create dreadfully vivid scenes. Often, the theme in Flannery's books is not clear and one must dig deeper into the book to find its true meaning. In her short story books, like Everything that Rises Must Converge, I find it easier to discern a prominent theme, because I can compare the stories to find a common thread. However, the theme of Wise Blood hides within the more complex story line. Through looking into the characters' actions, I found this dominant theme: 'Do not plan too far into the future, until you know what lies ahead.' Too many of the characters in the book make plans for the morrow but cannot fulfill them and ultimately end up disappointed. Enoch Emery feels in his blood that he has a mission, but he is unsure of how he should react to the strange messages. Instead of being productive and continuing with job and other engagements, he spends all of his time worrying about what he must do. If he had been flexible from the beginning and pondered less about his "mission," he could have avoided being caught up in theft of a museum artifact. Flannery's writing, especially in this short novel, is compelling, and makes it hard to put the book down. Her attention to detail makes one feel that the characters have been neighbors all one's life, even though they lived in such a different time and place. She has a way of writing that enfolds the reader into the story. I often was frustrated with the story line, because she made me realize that the characters' conflicts with their surroundings and each other result in doings that are morally wrong. This style characterizes Flannery's writing, in that her stories often end up with an unexpectedly tragic ending. Her tragic endings are just one more way that she portrays the grim life style of those less fortunate. The ending left me thirsty for more of the story. I did not feel Flannery completely told parts of the novel; she did not finish many of the sub-stories that she started. Despite this drawback, I found the book to be well thought out and written in the amazing way that only Flannery can write. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy in-depth but short novels that transport them into the hard life of those who struggled to get along in the city slums of the Fifties.
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