Wise Blood

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.

"Do you think it is possible to come to Christ through ordinary dislike before discovering the love of Christ? Can dislike be a sign?" - Walker Percy in The Last GentlemanI've never really grasped what Walker Percy meant by that one until I read Wise Blood, but that's what happens. The opposite of love isn't hate. Rather, it's indifference, and hate is some form of love. In Wise Blood, Hazel does hate Christ, but that hate is emblematic of the belief (and unwanted love) he actually holds for Him. Wise Blood is Hazel's dark journey in a fallen world toward happening onto a bit of grace, painful but merciful at the same time.Wise Blood isn't a book to read if you want to end up with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Its setting is a grim, fallen world, and the characters aren't exactly likeable. Nevertheless, the truth O'Connor has to present through her dark humor is powerful and insightful. This is a wonderful book for intellectual Christians and for anyone else searching for truth in this mess of a world.

What an insane book. It's really quite incredible. Flannery O'Connor found all the problems of society, injected them into absurdly weird yet decidedly realistic scenarios and made a book about it. This book deals with obsession, self worth, and generally a whole bunch of people trying to escape themselves, or at least what they think defines themselves. And to boot, it can be terribly funny in a twisted way. Flannery O' Connor rocks.It's about Hazel Motes and the various well defined characters that ram into his life, and he doesn't even notice them. There's the ... blind preacher's daughter, and the suburban washup teenager, and the blind preacher, who all play pivotal roles in Motes' existence, though again, he doesn't realize it. Hazel pretty much goes through the book living in his own world, even though he hates his head also. Motes, after all, is a strange character who is desperately seeking peace with himself, and as you'll see he never fails in punishing himself. He's obsessed with Christ and purity, yet he loathes Christianity and purity. So he creates the Church of Christ Without Christ, and as he tries to promote it, a series of terrifying and subtle events occur that will make you bugeyed with wonder and horror and disgust. He descends from what you would think is a good proper religious fanatic, to a degraded near maniacal individual, and that's what really captivates you, though O'Connor provides ample sideshows. And then, the end is as strange and satisfying as the rest of the book. This is a strange crazy incredibly captivating and overwhelmingly intense book that only lasts a hundred or so pages, but after you'll probably run to Jane Austen. But then in their own funny ways, both Pride and Prejudice and Wise Blood are full of that irony that makes us think about what a bunch of hypocrites we can be to ourselves sometimes.

Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood contains many reoccuring and undermining religious themes. Her main theme includes the redemption of man by Christ. She also depicts the grotesques in society through her use of her subject matter. O'Connor bluntly uses this religious theme to prove that redemption is difficult for her characters because of the distorted sense of moral purpose in her characters. Throughout her novel, a major emphasis is placed on materialsim and money. Through her use of imagery, symbols, and details, O'Connor produces the unbalanced prosperity of the society, which leaves little assurance to blissfulness in life. Her protagonist, Hazel Motes, becomes a fated preacher or even prophet; however, Hazel rejects any form of Christ in his life including the image of himself. Even though it is rejected, his fate dominates him throughout the novel, and via his rejection of Christ, Hazel preaches the Church without Christ. Hazel finds that his reason for existence is to form the Church without Christ. Eventually, Hazel sacrifices everything in his life so as to not accept Christ which eventually destroys him. It would have been much better to sacrifice everything he had to begin with in order to accept Christ and let Christ take over from there. This would have prevented Hazel's destruction rooted from his rejection of Christ. This proves O'Connor's purpose of showing a society full of people who cannot accept Christ and who are, at most times, destroyed in some way in their attempt to reject their religious side.O'Connor mocks evangelism and the all too popular "preachers for profits," who have no training in religion what so ever, in order to display her scorn for popularized anti-cerebral religion. Hazel, whose name is actually Hebrew for "he who sees God," ironically but purposefully covers himself with a figurative veil. This veil covers his soul and his senses from seeing Christ as He should be seen. His nickname, Haze, also proves his inability to see clearly.Throughout this novel, Hazel runs into several people who perform mysterious acts of goodness for him trying to help Hazel find Grace. This is also ironic condiering that most of Hazel's acquaintances are profiteer preachers. Some of these acquaintances include: Asa Hawks, an ex-evangelist, who pretends to blind himself for sympathy and profit as he "hawks" for money around the city; Enoch Emery, the boy with "wise blood," who cannot find his inner self and becomes Hazel's follower in the Church without Christ; and Hoover Shoats, another profiteer preacher, who pretends to agree with Hazel's beliefs just to gain profit from it.Haze's car is a major sumbol of the novel. This car becomes Hazel's "church." Hazel lives in his car and preaches from his car. His car becomes the "rock" which Hazel builds his church upon. He and his car become "one." After his car is destroyed, Hazel sees himself as destroyed. Hazel is weaned