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Available
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Genres
Publication
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1990), Edition: Reprint, 232 pages
Description
Flannery O'Connor's astonishing and haunting first novel is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his innate, desperate faith. He falls under the spell of a "blind" street preacher named Asa Hawks and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter. In an ironic, malicious gesture of his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawks, Hazel founds The Church of God Without Christ but is still thwarted in his efforts to lose God. He meets Enoch Emery, a young man with "wise blood," who leads him to a mummified holy child and whose crazy maneuvers are a manifestation of Hazel's existential struggles. This tale of redemption, retribution, false prophets, blindness, and wisdom gives us one of the most riveting characters in American fiction.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member weird_O
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
Southern gothic! Grotesques! Sinister stuff! Flannery O'Connor! D I S T U R B I N G….yet comic. In so many ways, [Wise Blood] is a hoot, even though its author has a serious intent.
As the novel begins, the main character, Hazel Motes, takes a train to Taulkinham in
Okay, okay!! Just stop a minute. Say that name again. Hazel…Motes. Yes, Hazel is a man, and yes, that's a little weird, but think about that name Motes. Motes. What comes to my mind is the Biblical injunction about a mote in the eye. The novel's author, Flannery O'Connor, is renown for her biblical themes. So I googled "a mote in the eye" and with little effort ended up at Matthew 7:3-5, which in the King James Bible reads:
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Hmmm, is this guy Motes a hypocrite? Does he have impaired vision? Note that by page 3, O'Connor is calling him "Haze," perhaps another indication he doesn't see clearly.
Now where were we? Oh, yeah, on the train with Haze. He's withdrawn and taciturn. Wearing a "glaring blue" suit, the price tag still stapled to a sleeve, and holding a black, wide-brimmed hat, it strikes many observers that he's a preacher. (He denies it.) When a fellow passenger tries to start a conversation, he says to her, "I reckon you think you been redeemed." When she doesn't respond, he repeats, "I reckon you think you been redeemed." A short time later, he's seated in the dining car with a different passenger, to whom he says, "If you've been redeemed, I wouldn't want to be." She laughs, and he asks, "Do you think I believe in Jesus? Well, I wouldn't even if He existed. Even if He was on this train."
Later, sleeping in his berth, he dreams about his grandfather, who was a preacher, a circuit preacher traveling around three Tennessee counties and using his car as a pulpit from which to harangue passers-by. From his grandfather, Haze inherited "a strong confidence in his power to resist evil." He had decided early in his life that he didn't need Jesus; it was "a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin."
Nevertheless, Motes has redemption, Jesus, and preaching weighing on his mind, one way or another. Clearly, it's a focus of this novel. So too is faulty conviction and faulty vision. During his dream, O'Connor tells us that "…the Bible was the only book he read. He didn't read it often but when he did he wore his mother's glasses. They tired his eyes so that after a short time he was always obliged to stop." And as the story progresses, we see how stubborn (and wrong) he is.
Once he gets to Taulkinham, he finds the name and address of a prostitute in the railroad station bathroom, rides to her place in a taxi whose driver insists Motes IS a preacher ("It's a look in your face somewheres"), and is welcomed into her bed ("That's okay, son. Momma don't mind if you ain't a preacher"). The next day Motes walks the streets of Taulkinham where he's ensnared by a teen named Enoch Emery and by a blind man rattling a tin cup while his young female companion distributes leaflets. The former sticks to Haze like a burr. He's new to the town himself, has no friends (though he does have a job as a guard at the city zoo), and thinks everyone in the town looks like "all they want to do is knock you down." The latter asks why Haze is following him, and as he and the girl amble away, he needles and goads him. "I can smell the sin on your breath." And: "I can hear the urge for Jesus in {your} voice." And: "Listen boy, you can't run away from Jesus. Jesus is a fact." And: "Some preacher has left his mark on you. Did you follow for me to take it off or give you another one?"
Asa Hawk is this preacher's name; the girl is, he asserts, his daughter, named Sabbath Lily Hawk. (I like the idea of a blind man being a Hawk; hawks have remark vision.) Haze is very curious about him, as well as about his peculiar "daughter." Before long, Haze has moved into their boarding house, and every day, he knocks at their door but is turned away. Sabbath Lily confides to Asa that she is drawn to Haze's eyes. "I like his eyes…They don't look like they see what he's looking at but they keep on looking."
About this time, Haze buys a derelict rat-colored Essex automobile, and he uses it as a pulpit—just like his grandfather—to preach about the Church without Christ. The first time Enoch sees him preaching from atop the Essex, he hears Haze shout: "The Church Without Christ don't have a jesus but it needs one! It needs a new jesus! It needs one that's all man, without blood to waste, and it needs one that don't look like any other man so you'll look at him. Give me such a jesus, you people." Enoch has a "Eureka moment." He knows where this figure is! He knows it is "the new jesus." He can feel it in his blood because Enoch knows he is blessed with "wise blood." It drives his life, telling him when to act and when to wait. And his blood is surging, driving him to act.
Haze preaches every evening, parking his car right outside a movie theater, so he can address young and old as they emerge from the show. One evening he has a disciple, a heavy-set fellow who expects to pump up the crowd and, in the bargain, collect some donations.The disciple identifies himself as Onnie Jay Holy, but soon acknowledges his name really is Hoover Shoats (need I point out that a shoat is a young pig). When Haze chases him away, he turns up the next night, standing on the sidewalk next to a duplicate of Haze's Essex complete with a Haze doppelganger standing on the hood.
Still ahead is GONGA! Giant Jungle Monarch, the shrunken man-doll from the zoo museum, a landlady in love, quick-lime, a barbed-wire chest-wrap, the acceptance of redemption, and the end of the novel. But if you are at all like me, it will live on in your head, challenging you to sort it all out.
Southern gothic! Grotesques! Sinister stuff! Flannery O'Connor! D I S T U R B I N G….yet comic. In so many ways, [Wise Blood] is a hoot, even though its author has a serious intent.
As the novel begins, the main character, Hazel Motes, takes a train to Taulkinham in
Show More
an unidentified state in the Old South. Okay, okay!! Just stop a minute. Say that name again. Hazel…Motes. Yes, Hazel is a man, and yes, that's a little weird, but think about that name Motes. Motes. What comes to my mind is the Biblical injunction about a mote in the eye. The novel's author, Flannery O'Connor, is renown for her biblical themes. So I googled "a mote in the eye" and with little effort ended up at Matthew 7:3-5, which in the King James Bible reads:
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Hmmm, is this guy Motes a hypocrite? Does he have impaired vision? Note that by page 3, O'Connor is calling him "Haze," perhaps another indication he doesn't see clearly.
Now where were we? Oh, yeah, on the train with Haze. He's withdrawn and taciturn. Wearing a "glaring blue" suit, the price tag still stapled to a sleeve, and holding a black, wide-brimmed hat, it strikes many observers that he's a preacher. (He denies it.) When a fellow passenger tries to start a conversation, he says to her, "I reckon you think you been redeemed." When she doesn't respond, he repeats, "I reckon you think you been redeemed." A short time later, he's seated in the dining car with a different passenger, to whom he says, "If you've been redeemed, I wouldn't want to be." She laughs, and he asks, "Do you think I believe in Jesus? Well, I wouldn't even if He existed. Even if He was on this train."
Later, sleeping in his berth, he dreams about his grandfather, who was a preacher, a circuit preacher traveling around three Tennessee counties and using his car as a pulpit from which to harangue passers-by. From his grandfather, Haze inherited "a strong confidence in his power to resist evil." He had decided early in his life that he didn't need Jesus; it was "a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin."
Nevertheless, Motes has redemption, Jesus, and preaching weighing on his mind, one way or another. Clearly, it's a focus of this novel. So too is faulty conviction and faulty vision. During his dream, O'Connor tells us that "…the Bible was the only book he read. He didn't read it often but when he did he wore his mother's glasses. They tired his eyes so that after a short time he was always obliged to stop." And as the story progresses, we see how stubborn (and wrong) he is.
Once he gets to Taulkinham, he finds the name and address of a prostitute in the railroad station bathroom, rides to her place in a taxi whose driver insists Motes IS a preacher ("It's a look in your face somewheres"), and is welcomed into her bed ("That's okay, son. Momma don't mind if you ain't a preacher"). The next day Motes walks the streets of Taulkinham where he's ensnared by a teen named Enoch Emery and by a blind man rattling a tin cup while his young female companion distributes leaflets. The former sticks to Haze like a burr. He's new to the town himself, has no friends (though he does have a job as a guard at the city zoo), and thinks everyone in the town looks like "all they want to do is knock you down." The latter asks why Haze is following him, and as he and the girl amble away, he needles and goads him. "I can smell the sin on your breath." And: "I can hear the urge for Jesus in {your} voice." And: "Listen boy, you can't run away from Jesus. Jesus is a fact." And: "Some preacher has left his mark on you. Did you follow for me to take it off or give you another one?"
Asa Hawk is this preacher's name; the girl is, he asserts, his daughter, named Sabbath Lily Hawk. (I like the idea of a blind man being a Hawk; hawks have remark vision.) Haze is very curious about him, as well as about his peculiar "daughter." Before long, Haze has moved into their boarding house, and every day, he knocks at their door but is turned away. Sabbath Lily confides to Asa that she is drawn to Haze's eyes. "I like his eyes…They don't look like they see what he's looking at but they keep on looking."
About this time, Haze buys a derelict rat-colored Essex automobile, and he uses it as a pulpit—just like his grandfather—to preach about the Church without Christ. The first time Enoch sees him preaching from atop the Essex, he hears Haze shout: "The Church Without Christ don't have a jesus but it needs one! It needs a new jesus! It needs one that's all man, without blood to waste, and it needs one that don't look like any other man so you'll look at him. Give me such a jesus, you people." Enoch has a "Eureka moment." He knows where this figure is! He knows it is "the new jesus." He can feel it in his blood because Enoch knows he is blessed with "wise blood." It drives his life, telling him when to act and when to wait. And his blood is surging, driving him to act.
Haze preaches every evening, parking his car right outside a movie theater, so he can address young and old as they emerge from the show. One evening he has a disciple, a heavy-set fellow who expects to pump up the crowd and, in the bargain, collect some donations.The disciple identifies himself as Onnie Jay Holy, but soon acknowledges his name really is Hoover Shoats (need I point out that a shoat is a young pig). When Haze chases him away, he turns up the next night, standing on the sidewalk next to a duplicate of Haze's Essex complete with a Haze doppelganger standing on the hood.
Still ahead is GONGA! Giant Jungle Monarch, the shrunken man-doll from the zoo museum, a landlady in love, quick-lime, a barbed-wire chest-wrap, the acceptance of redemption, and the end of the novel. But if you are at all like me, it will live on in your head, challenging you to sort it all out.
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LibraryThing member caldrik
This is one of the most compelling reads I've had in a while. The characters are good in the sense of well rendered, but not good in the sense that they seem incapable of being good people. No one is likable, and the story unfolds in a very ugly way. But the trick here is that Flannery O'Connor
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writes about this ugly mess in a beautiful way, and with more than a little love. Show Less
LibraryThing member susanamper
. O'Connor writes very weird stories and mostly I like them all. Set in the post war war II south, the novel is peopled by strange characters. The protagonist is Hazel Motes, and he is struggling against his faith. He wants to believe there is no Christ, but eventually Christ is not to be denied. A
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story of redemption and hope and despair; it is very compelling and has a fabulous ending Show Less
LibraryThing member William345
Hazel Motes gets out of the army and arbitrarily goes to a generic southern city to play out his damage. He has lost his father and mother and grandfather. While traveling on a sleeper to the city he has a dream in which each in turn manage to spring out of their coffins, miraculously alive. Then
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he wakes up. He is in a fury at Jesus, presumably for failing him, though his specific anger on the matter is never addressed. A rage burns within him which he cannot satisfy, no matter what he does. Even when he begins the Church Without Christ and begins to "preach" from the hood of his old car. He reminds me of the inarticulate family Naipaul writes about in The Enigma of Arrival, who, because they lack language, can only act out their sufferings in quasi-violent ways. To say that Hazel Motes eventually addresses matters through recourse to violence gives nothing away. When reading the closing pages its seems all too, not predictable, but correct, from the standpoint of his character. O'Connor refers to him as Haze, a nickname that captures wonderfully his undirected nature. His last name is Motes, specks of dust in the air, seems an apt metaphor for his lack of direction as well. The book has amazing moments throughout and an adroitly handled suspense grips the reader. Be advised, this book makes liberal use in the early going of the n-word. At first my sense was that O'Connor knew how these people would speak and what words they would use, and these are the words she used. But this seems false when one considers that such persons realistically must have cursed a blue streak, too, yet none of those words made their way into the text. Show Less
LibraryThing member jmx
Hazel "Haze" Motes, a 22-year-old, has just returned from the war and becomes a preacher of the Church of Truth Without Christ, a church of his own creation that he uses to spread words against God, judgement, sin or evil.
This is a unique work of "low comedy and high seriousness", where a feeling
This is a unique work of "low comedy and high seriousness", where a feeling
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of lack of purpose mixes with a sense of mysterious predestination to give this novel the right setting to discuss religion and humanity. Show Less
LibraryThing member judithrs
Wise Blood. Flannery O’Connor. 1962. This is O’Connor’s first novel and the first novel I have read by her. It is just as strange and absurd as her short stories which I think I like better. Hazel Moats struggles in vain to rid himself of his faith. After he meets Asa Hawkes, a phony, blind
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street preacher and his horny daughter, Moats decides to establish his own Church of God without Christ. He also meets Enoch Emery who is even stranger than Hawkes. Emery explains the concept of “wise blood” and shows Hazel a mummified man Emery claims to be a holy child. Like O’Connor’s short stories, this novel is full of symbolism, faith and lack of faith, redemption and damnation. This is not the book to read for anyone who is unfamiliar with O’Connor. I read this title for our book club, and we also read, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” one of her most famous stories. It was great! Show Less
LibraryThing member stratu23
One of the strangest books I ever read, and one of the most wonderful and enjoyable. Right up there with books like Knut Hamsun's Mysteries and Hunger, or Mitch Cullen's Tideland, even Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
The characters in O'Connor's book behave so unpredictably and oddly, even though
One of the funniest things about the book is the way the characters relate to religion/Christianity. Nobody seems to know anything about it, yet it what it really says about the whole thing is cleverly done I think.
Now I gotta track down eveything else Ms O'Connor wrote (which isn't much - she died when she was only 39).
The characters in O'Connor's book behave so unpredictably and oddly, even though
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there is some level of tragedy, it is also really great and you will surely fall in love with these characters.One of the funniest things about the book is the way the characters relate to religion/Christianity. Nobody seems to know anything about it, yet it what it really says about the whole thing is cleverly done I think.
Now I gotta track down eveything else Ms O'Connor wrote (which isn't much - she died when she was only 39).
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LibraryThing member Dreesie
One religious/anti-religious nutcase meets a seemingly mentally ill man who unsuccessfully tries to control his bad impulses (he of the wise blood). They meet a charlatan preacher and his daughter, who gives nutcase #1 ideas.
Supposedly this is all alleghory/symbolism/whatever. That seems likely,
My copy (from the library) had some highlights and some pretty funny notes in the margins (OH NO...hisself; he's a CON artist; WHY?!). Those comments made this read a little funny for me--whoever that person was, he/she saw things differently than I did.
Supposedly this is all alleghory/symbolism/whatever. That seems likely,
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because otherwise it is just plain weird. I am not a huge fan of the novel as symbolism (and only if the author admitted to such symbolism)--and I have no idea who means what etc etc.My copy (from the library) had some highlights and some pretty funny notes in the margins (OH NO...hisself; he's a CON artist; WHY?!). Those comments made this read a little funny for me--whoever that person was, he/she saw things differently than I did.
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LibraryThing member WillyMammoth
If nothing else, Wise Blood is a great example of Post Modern literature. There's no happy ending, no moral lesson, just a bleak, somewhat hyperbolic rendition of the Christ Haunted South. And that's the best term for this book--Christ Haunted. Almost all of the characters in the novel are seeking
But beyond this central theme, the book has nothing in the way of overall meaning or a lesson or even a glimmer of hope you're going to be disappointed. O'Connor's minimalist style works well with this deficiency of meaning; however, if I could find one fault with O'Connor's writing, it's that there's just too much. There's a ton of great scenes and interesting characters, but it almost seems as if O'Connor jammed as many "cool ideas" as she could into the book with little thought to how they all fit together. It made the book seem somewhat disjointed, but I suppose that's part of the "meaningless" charm of the whole thing.
The novel is darkly comic. In fact, I found myself laughing out loud as I read certain parts. But it's also tragic--not in the classic tragedy sense (high brought low by their own inevitable flaws), but more in the senselessness of it all. The characters act in incomprehensible ways at times, but it is because they are continually bound by the specter of Christ looming over them.
Wise Blood is not a novel to be read lightly. If it's casual reading you're looking for, you should keep looking. Typical readers, I feel, would be frustrated with this story. But if you're a fan of "serious" literature or want to delve more into Post Modernism, I would urge you to seriously consider anything by Flannery O'Connor. Her body of work isn't extensive, but very few do it as well as she does.
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to distance themselves from Christianity, from the moral code that has been stamped onto the South, and O'Connor's version of the South, especially. Hazel Motes seeks to start a new religion, the Church Without Christ, but he his new religion is predicated on refuting Christianity, and therefore is still bound to it. The Asa Hawks, the blind false prophet, is cynical and godless, but he makes his living through preaching a Word he doesn't believe. Enoch Emery, a teenager abandoned by his father, doesn't like church or church people, yet his "wise blood" seeks religious meaning in utterly mundane circumstances almost against his will. Try as they might, Christ and Christianity are inescapable. But beyond this central theme, the book has nothing in the way of overall meaning or a lesson or even a glimmer of hope you're going to be disappointed. O'Connor's minimalist style works well with this deficiency of meaning; however, if I could find one fault with O'Connor's writing, it's that there's just too much. There's a ton of great scenes and interesting characters, but it almost seems as if O'Connor jammed as many "cool ideas" as she could into the book with little thought to how they all fit together. It made the book seem somewhat disjointed, but I suppose that's part of the "meaningless" charm of the whole thing.
The novel is darkly comic. In fact, I found myself laughing out loud as I read certain parts. But it's also tragic--not in the classic tragedy sense (high brought low by their own inevitable flaws), but more in the senselessness of it all. The characters act in incomprehensible ways at times, but it is because they are continually bound by the specter of Christ looming over them.
Wise Blood is not a novel to be read lightly. If it's casual reading you're looking for, you should keep looking. Typical readers, I feel, would be frustrated with this story. But if you're a fan of "serious" literature or want to delve more into Post Modernism, I would urge you to seriously consider anything by Flannery O'Connor. Her body of work isn't extensive, but very few do it as well as she does.
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LibraryThing member the_terrible_trivium
I find that it goes a bit pear-shaped by the end, but the first half is as gripping and profoundly ODD as anything I've ever read. Really, bits and pieces of this novel are permanently ingrained in my consciousness, never matter its flaws.
LibraryThing member ApollosCrow
This was my first by O'Connor.
Story and theme aside, there is something about her style that is very addicting. I found myself speeding through this book in two days. Her prose has a no-nonsense directness that is amplified by the occasional (cunningly apt) metaphor, and by her darkly human
Much is made about the author's religious views, but in O'Connor's uniquely questing artistry, what comes to the fore is not doctrine, but rather the tangled root of her beliefs, which really reflect a universal problem of seeking meaning.
Our protagonist is Haze Motes (a name which I learned references a Biblical passage regarding judgement - "do not remove the mote from your neighbor's eye without first removing your own"). This allusion to eyes is part of the central concern of the book, that of vision (and blindness). Haze's eyes are described like a sacred mystery by the young girl who is fascinated by him, eyes that "don't look like they see what he's looking at but they keep on looking." Haze is constantly looking, but rarely and reluctantly at the external world.
What he is looking for is a truth that the Church no longer provides him. A derelict veteran, he finds a calling to become a vocal anti-theist, even while his conflicts and behavior show him to have an indelibly "religious" persona in spite of his denouncements - a backwards nihilist monk, committed to his own special mission. He becomes an anti-preacher, trying to open people's eyes to the needlessness of their moral suffering, yet really projecting his own sense of being lost. He is reactive and materially indifferent. And he occupies his own world, inwardly focused on his concerns for redemption and truth. Other characters try to penetrate this world, to see what is behind those eyes, attracted to his suffering. The last quarter of the book brings the author's ideas together beautifully in a suddenly tightened knot that left me feeling a touch breathless.
Flannery O'Connor is brilliant at layering symbolism and exploring an idea from seemingly casual, tangential angles. Her depth catches you suddenly and off-guard, like suddenly realizing you've tread too far from the shore. I am looking forward very much to exploring her work more.
Story and theme aside, there is something about her style that is very addicting. I found myself speeding through this book in two days. Her prose has a no-nonsense directness that is amplified by the occasional (cunningly apt) metaphor, and by her darkly human
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characters - grotesque, self-serving, dishonest, indifferent, cruel, desperate.Much is made about the author's religious views, but in O'Connor's uniquely questing artistry, what comes to the fore is not doctrine, but rather the tangled root of her beliefs, which really reflect a universal problem of seeking meaning.
Our protagonist is Haze Motes (a name which I learned references a Biblical passage regarding judgement - "do not remove the mote from your neighbor's eye without first removing your own"). This allusion to eyes is part of the central concern of the book, that of vision (and blindness). Haze's eyes are described like a sacred mystery by the young girl who is fascinated by him, eyes that "don't look like they see what he's looking at but they keep on looking." Haze is constantly looking, but rarely and reluctantly at the external world.
What he is looking for is a truth that the Church no longer provides him. A derelict veteran, he finds a calling to become a vocal anti-theist, even while his conflicts and behavior show him to have an indelibly "religious" persona in spite of his denouncements - a backwards nihilist monk, committed to his own special mission. He becomes an anti-preacher, trying to open people's eyes to the needlessness of their moral suffering, yet really projecting his own sense of being lost. He is reactive and materially indifferent. And he occupies his own world, inwardly focused on his concerns for redemption and truth. Other characters try to penetrate this world, to see what is behind those eyes, attracted to his suffering. The last quarter of the book brings the author's ideas together beautifully in a suddenly tightened knot that left me feeling a touch breathless.
Flannery O'Connor is brilliant at layering symbolism and exploring an idea from seemingly casual, tangential angles. Her depth catches you suddenly and off-guard, like suddenly realizing you've tread too far from the shore. I am looking forward very much to exploring her work more.
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LibraryThing member jillrhudy
Off its hinges. A typical quote: "To his mind, an opportunity to insult a successful ape came from the hand of Providence." The message seems to be: if Hazel and Enoch can't be redeemed somehow then none of us can. I'm on board with that.
LibraryThing member JimmyChanga
This book is sad and funny, but mostly sad. Hazel Motes and Enoch Emory are as memorably weird as Ignatius J. Reilly. I had a hard time thinking about this book, thinking about what it means, thinking about what it feels like to be Flannery, thinking about all the churches across america without
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Christ, and all the rat-colored vehicles being tipped over the sides of hills, where the people who run the world are total dolts who happen to be so attired in authority, thinking about suffering and suffering and suffering, and oh how romantic that can be. Show Less
LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
This is engaging and quick, however unbelievable. If you're a fan of novellas or of Flannery O'Connor, I'd recommend it, but look more for meaning and entertainment than reality, which to some extent hindered the experience for me. It's engaging, but it left me wanting more and feeling very little.
LibraryThing member Humbert_Humbert
Southern fiction at its finest. Tearing apart all the views of what it really means to be faithful O'Connor weaves a tale that makes you think twice about what you believe yourself.
LibraryThing member shawjonathan
Wise Blood. It reads to me as if it was written in a trance -- as if some twisted angel had dictated it and the young Ms O'Connor just wrote it down, trusting it would amount to something. Most of its characters are all 'a little bit off their heads' and a big bit off the rails. Hazel Motes, played
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by Brad Dourif in the John Huston movie which I plan to watch again on DVD soon, is in obsessive revolt against the punitive and repressive Christianity of his childhood, and burns with an evangelical imperative to preach a Church without Christ (I would have said cacangelical but the word doesn't seem to exist). I remember reading a review of the movie that compared Hazel to the Monty Python character who was trying to train ravens to fly underwater. That comparison captures the bleak comedy of the book, but leaves out the appalling sense of waste and, in the end, awe that Hazel inspires. Flannery O'Connor was a Catholic living in the southern US. The characters in this book are all Protestant. Maybe they she's observing them from the other side of a sectarian fence and seeing them as wildly deluded, but the pervasive sense of intractable mystery, of not-knowing, and the lack of overt authorial commentary, makes a sectarian reading seem very wide of the mark. I finished the last page with a sense that I'd ben taken somewhere dark, weird and scarily believable. Show Less
LibraryThing member MiserableLibrarian
O’Connor’s first novel was published in 1952. Haze Motes preaches the “Church Without Christ;” O’Connor describes the book as being about a “Protestant saint, written from the point of view of a Catholic.” The story is dark, almost grotesque at times, but certainly a good story, and
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one worth rereading. Excellent Notes in this Library of America edition. Show Less
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
O'Connor's first novel was published in 1952, and is a classic Southern Gothic novel, filled with grotesque and disturbing characters. It is a darkly comic satire of Southern small town life and religion, although these themes are not limited to the South or the United States.
Hazel Motes is a young
Motes buys a used "rat-colored car", and becomes a street preacher for his new church, The Church Without Christ, proselytizing while standing on the hood of his car: "I believe in a new kind of jesus...one that can't waste his blood redeeming people with it, because he's all man and ain't got any God in him. My church is the Church Without Christ!"
He meets Enoch Emery, an unstable teenager abandoned by his father, who is unduly influenced by Motes, a miniaturized mummy in a museum, and a gorilla that is a movie star. Other key characters are Asa Hawks, a blind evangenical preacher who is neither blind nor a man of God; his illegitimate 15 year old daughter Sabbath, who is just as immoral as her father; and Hoover Shoats, a huckster masquerading as an evangelical preacher who tries to form an alliance with Motes, and when he is rebuffed, forms a rival "church", The Holy Church of Christ Without Christ, going so far as to hire a "twin" that looks and dresses exactly like Motes.
The novel is bizarre at the beginning, and only becomes more so as the plots develop. Heroes? There are none, nor any victims. Moral to the story? You won't find it here (at least I didn't). Who is the "new jesus", Motes or Enoch...or nobody?
It is a testament to O'Connor's skill as a writer that these thoroughly dislikable characters and this unlikely plot combine to form a fantastic novel, which I couldn't put down.
Hazel Motes is a young
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man who has been discharged from active military duty, and he is traveling by train to a small town in Tennessee. He is taciturn with an underlying mean streak, someone you would never turn your back on or trust with your least valued possession. As he mentions to a fellow passenger, "{I} Don't know nobody there, but I'm going to do some things."Motes buys a used "rat-colored car", and becomes a street preacher for his new church, The Church Without Christ, proselytizing while standing on the hood of his car: "I believe in a new kind of jesus...one that can't waste his blood redeeming people with it, because he's all man and ain't got any God in him. My church is the Church Without Christ!"
He meets Enoch Emery, an unstable teenager abandoned by his father, who is unduly influenced by Motes, a miniaturized mummy in a museum, and a gorilla that is a movie star. Other key characters are Asa Hawks, a blind evangenical preacher who is neither blind nor a man of God; his illegitimate 15 year old daughter Sabbath, who is just as immoral as her father; and Hoover Shoats, a huckster masquerading as an evangelical preacher who tries to form an alliance with Motes, and when he is rebuffed, forms a rival "church", The Holy Church of Christ Without Christ, going so far as to hire a "twin" that looks and dresses exactly like Motes.
The novel is bizarre at the beginning, and only becomes more so as the plots develop. Heroes? There are none, nor any victims. Moral to the story? You won't find it here (at least I didn't). Who is the "new jesus", Motes or Enoch...or nobody?
It is a testament to O'Connor's skill as a writer that these thoroughly dislikable characters and this unlikely plot combine to form a fantastic novel, which I couldn't put down.
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LibraryThing member Stbalbach
I really enjoyed the short stories in A Good Man is Hard to Find but found O'Connor's first novel Wise Blood less enthralling. The writing is excellent but structurally it's like a few short stories strung together, perhaps because she wrote it over a period of many years. It's a deeply religious
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and philosophical novel that is difficult to interpret without help - and even then challenging. It's an important groundbreaking book because she set the stage for "Southern Gothic", focusing on the outcast and unsavory southern character. It's like a comic strip, or Dickens "sketch", with colorful and exaggerated characters whose interactions create a three dimensional universe. It's a book of literary historical significance with multidimensional themes that can be approached from many perspectives but in the end the story as entertainment is not compelling enough - but hey, it's her first book, her later short stories would of course prove otherwise! Show Less
LibraryThing member jeanphilli
Well written, of course, but way too much angst for me.
LibraryThing member eesti23
Wise Blood tells the story of Hazel Motes and his journey in an attempt to prove his non-faith and the characters that he meets along the way.
While I appreciate all the symbolism and the various interpretations of the reasons behind Flannery O'Conner's decision to write this novel I couldn't shrug
I appreciate that I am most likely in the minority with this opinion, and it was by no means a difficult read. Not a page turner but enough of a hint of intrigue to keep you reading, even if it was only in the blind hope that the point of the story would somewhere appear. However, all in all, it just wasn't a hit with me.
While I appreciate all the symbolism and the various interpretations of the reasons behind Flannery O'Conner's decision to write this novel I couldn't shrug
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off the feeling that this book had absolutely no point. Characters and events that seemed important in some parts, had all but disappeared and been forgotten about by the end.I appreciate that I am most likely in the minority with this opinion, and it was by no means a difficult read. Not a page turner but enough of a hint of intrigue to keep you reading, even if it was only in the blind hope that the point of the story would somewhere appear. However, all in all, it just wasn't a hit with me.
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LibraryThing member StephenBarkley
This book is overwhelming. O’Connor has a knack for placing her vividly imagined characters in bizarre (yet somehow appropriate) situations.
I’ve often thought that “classic” novels should be read for the beauty of their prose–the plot is often irrelevant. For example, you can read any
Here are some of the things I loved about this book:
1. The worldview is thoroughly Christian without being trite.
2. The characters suffer from various mental problems, which make them real.
3. The elements of the plot are often bizarre, yet are perfectly suitable for the story.
4. The symbolism is deep and is woven throughout the entire story.
It’s sad that O’Connor only wrote two novels. I would love to hear from anyone who has read her novels and could recommend another novelist I would enjoy reading. For now, I’m going to pick up her short stories.
I’ve often thought that “classic” novels should be read for the beauty of their prose–the plot is often irrelevant. For example, you can read any
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random chapter of War and Peace and be impressed by the writing without understanding the plot at all. O’Connor’s writing certainly has that quality, but the plot is compelling as well. It’s a one-two punch that makes the book irresistible.Here are some of the things I loved about this book:
1. The worldview is thoroughly Christian without being trite.
2. The characters suffer from various mental problems, which make them real.
3. The elements of the plot are often bizarre, yet are perfectly suitable for the story.
4. The symbolism is deep and is woven throughout the entire story.
It’s sad that O’Connor only wrote two novels. I would love to hear from anyone who has read her novels and could recommend another novelist I would enjoy reading. For now, I’m going to pick up her short stories.
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LibraryThing member RobinDawson
Really interesting - a dark, weird vision of a small Southern town peopled with drifters, outcasts and losers. All slightly addled, mentally unhinged and crazed by various religious demons. All the characters have bizarre names, reminding me of Annie Proulx's novels.
The charcaters are not likeable
It’s intriguing that O’Connor, a Catholic, wrote a book in which the central character argues vehemently for a rejection of the Christian faith.
The charcaters are not likeable
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in any way, and it's laced with violence and horor, but it's also clear that it was dreamed up by an author with a brilliant mind who is a master (mistress) of her craft. It’s intriguing that O’Connor, a Catholic, wrote a book in which the central character argues vehemently for a rejection of the Christian faith.
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LibraryThing member bernard_
Wise Blood is a novel drawn from a pastiche of several of O'Connor's own short stories from serials and other works in the 1940s. This fact stands out most plastically in the role of the Enoch Emery character, whose functionality is strictly limited to a very weak foil to the Hazel Motes character;
This is not a particular shortcoming of the novel, however– I imagine that if one had not been exposed to the works of Kierkegaard, Camus, Sartre, et al (and particularly such protagonists as Meursault in Camus' l'Étranger or Holden Caulfield in Salinger's Catcher in the Rye) that this quasi-existential religious probing of a novel might indeed draw intellectual first blood from the virgin mind. Hazel Motes is like any of us– engaging in a daily internal discourse in which the counterweights of what "ought" to be and what actually IS are diametrically opposed– as much a recapitulation of Hume's Is-Ought Problem as it is of any Kierkegaardian or other proto-Sartrean ideas. Hazel Motes is struggling to reconcile a world where he has been taught things should be one way, but all the senses, all tactile human experience he has collected have indicated everything to the contrary. Perhaps Wise Blood can be regarded as a study in cognitive dissonance.
Wise Blood is a good book. Flannery O'Connor has such good style. She is one of the great masters of both dialect & local color. Wise Blood is genuinely funny in several passages, which alone makes it a gem: it is a wonderful feeling to laugh out loud, in earnest, at the written word. The book is, as many have said, darkly comic. The work does amble in certain of passages involving Enoch Emery, but is otherwise a sparse, sparing, and efficient novel, worth a read to all, and in particular to those who hold in high regard the salient works of Faulkner, Camus, or Salinger.
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after being set up in the novel's exposition to ostensibly play a prime role in both the novel's dramatic structure and in the personal theological and existential exploration in which O'Connor engages, the Enoch Emery figure does neither.This is not a particular shortcoming of the novel, however– I imagine that if one had not been exposed to the works of Kierkegaard, Camus, Sartre, et al (and particularly such protagonists as Meursault in Camus' l'Étranger or Holden Caulfield in Salinger's Catcher in the Rye) that this quasi-existential religious probing of a novel might indeed draw intellectual first blood from the virgin mind. Hazel Motes is like any of us– engaging in a daily internal discourse in which the counterweights of what "ought" to be and what actually IS are diametrically opposed– as much a recapitulation of Hume's Is-Ought Problem as it is of any Kierkegaardian or other proto-Sartrean ideas. Hazel Motes is struggling to reconcile a world where he has been taught things should be one way, but all the senses, all tactile human experience he has collected have indicated everything to the contrary. Perhaps Wise Blood can be regarded as a study in cognitive dissonance.
Wise Blood is a good book. Flannery O'Connor has such good style. She is one of the great masters of both dialect & local color. Wise Blood is genuinely funny in several passages, which alone makes it a gem: it is a wonderful feeling to laugh out loud, in earnest, at the written word. The book is, as many have said, darkly comic. The work does amble in certain of passages involving Enoch Emery, but is otherwise a sparse, sparing, and efficient novel, worth a read to all, and in particular to those who hold in high regard the salient works of Faulkner, Camus, or Salinger.
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LibraryThing member jmoncton
Before I get completely slammed for the low rating on this book, I do think this book was well written. The rating reflects my personal reaction after reading it. 2 stars = 'it was ok'. I didn't enjoy it, but I could definitely see how this might appeal to some people. I've read short stories by
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Flannery O'Connor and she has a brilliant wit - dark, sarcastic, biting, but brilliant. This novel is about Hazel Motes, a Southern preacher who is questioning his own faith and decides to start a new religion, The Church of God Without Christ and goes around proselytizing his new beliefs. Maybe because I am an atheist/agnostic and am not from the South, but somehow, I didn't find this book to be a commentary on anything that I'm familiar with. Just not my cup of tea. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1952
ISBN
0374505845 / 9780374505844