Wise Blood

oconnor-wise_blood.jpg
From http://www.holidayatthesea.com/?p=4051
I finished my first novel by Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood. The novel, I think, is about salvation and the absence of grace. The main character, Hazel Motes, is a lost, restless man whose family is dead and whose roots are gone. He moves to a city where he meets strange characters, in particular a phony beggar who masquerades as a self-blinded preacher and Enoch, a half-insane boy whose life's only meaning is not his dead-end job at the zoo but his pulsing blood (intuition, feelings) that dictates his actions. Hazel Motes, obsessed with the reality of Jesus Christ and redemption, rebels against his grandfather's preaching and climbs on the hood of his car to preach "the Church of Christ Without Christ." The novel focuses on Hazel Motes as he desperately tries to find the truth without Christ; as he searches for meaning and salvation, he throws out the idea of a Savior. However, his means of salvation, his denial of grace, isn't enough.

I'm a fan of Flannery, but this novel was convoluted and strange. I understand her style of writing is like that, but as I read, I know that I'm missing so much and it frustrates me. Reading some commentary helped me to see some of the imagery and connections I missed, but I'm afraid my reading doesn't do justice to Flannery's writing. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

writing at JCup

I'm at Joshua Cup, the hipster-est place in Macon GA, a little coffee shop downtown with ceilings painted black and scratched wood floors. I'm drinking coffee black with cinnamon and I'm starting in on writing my SIP, a personal essay. But I don't really fit in. Two ladies in professional dress eat their organic lunches with big black sunglasses on their heads while three men use their laptops. The first is wearing a long grey robe of sorts with black dress shoes. Jewish maybe? I don't know, he's typing away on a word document. The other two look slightly disheveled. One with long, frizzy red hair and a black painter's cap has huge black headphones engulfing his ears; he's bent over his work on an ipad, shoulders kinked in. The other is wearing the gym clothes of a couch potato, baggy tshirt, baggy grey cotton shorts, and flipflops. They both sport facial hair. I sit somewhat apart with all the glory of a pink laptop, floral notebooks, two bags, and se
Read more

transitions

My life since the last post has transitioned into a new season. No more camp or summer shorts, beat-up t-shirts, and head scarfs; no more beautiful seven years olds singing pop songs or coloring for hours. School has begun and I've had to move into a period of organization, arranging my stuff, my time, my attitude. I've set up my dorm room, creating places for clothes, books, posters, movies, old stained couches, and ripped chairs. I've had to place my days into slots, dividing it into my classes, meetings, meals, and homework. My thoughts are just beginning to transition back into this focused, detail-oriented perspective, where I have thousands of little things that I have to make happen, but need to intensely devote myself to one task at a time. When this school mode kicks in, it is easy to forget the world, forget time isn't naturally divided by classes, homework, and friends, forget that people breathe and rest, forget that there is more to life than finishing ever
Read more

Everything into Enough

Failure sucks; here is a little hope that I'm struggling to hold on to, a bit of grace for a very weary sinner. It's from Today's Letters : "Here's to gratitude and how it turns everything into enough." Sometimes you need to stop thinking and just see good.  I am thankful  for sunshine after days of rain,  for rice and beans and corn, cheap and tasty with enough cheese and hot sauce,  for daily bread that breeds forgiveness,  for quiet evenings that offer a little respite from craziness,  for short tempers quickly resolved and selfishness overcome,  for being unseen on days where you feel unseeable,  for remembering that there is always hope, always grace. 
Read more