quite the debut novel

MINOR SPOILERS
This review is for solely Wise Blood, but I'll steadily be reading the rest of O'Connor's work as I make my way through a super cool literature class I'm enrolled in. But Wise Blood... it's certainly something. I've thought about all the different directions I could take this review in terms of what to analyze, but I think I might go for a slightly different approach and talk about my general impression of the main character since I very well might go insane if I try to cover the entire cast of characters and extent of symbolism used in this novel. As a fellow female novelist, I was greatly impressed with the fact that this is O'Connor's debut novel. Knowing she was a woman who thought deeply and intellectually about her personal faith and the state of religion in America adds a layer of extra depth to what she does with the characters in this story. We follow a young man who's just left the army post-WWII named Hazel Motes. He never ceased to unsettle me. He's hypercritical of others, oblivious to his own shortcomings, and literally kills a man. We follow this man as he steps into the role of preacher for a church that doesn't exist -- The Church of Christ Without Christ. Hazel's blatant resistance of Jesus' redemptive symbolism directly relates to his conviction that penitence and self-punishment for his sins is the way. All this is a result of childhood trauma traced way back to his grandfather (also a preacher) and the deaths of his father, mother, and brother. These undertones contribute to this book's cold, unsettling tone I've been using to describe it to my peers. Hazel just has such a negative view of Jesus that I find so fascinating and different from my own associations with Jesus. O'Connor's repeated use of characters looking into Hazel's eyes as if there's something otherworldly and ominous hiding in them was one of my favorite motifs. It's a well-sustained motif as well: the novel begins with a woman on the train peering into his eyes and concludes with Hazel's landlady doing the exact same thing, only Hazel is physically and spiritually gone, disappeared down the tunnel in his own head. Sooooo surreal and cool even though I have the distinct sense that a lot of the deeper meaning has gone over my head. I think I'll leave this review at that, though the host of other characters (specifically Enoch Emery and his weird gorilla-centered B plot) linger on the fringes of my mind. This is a book I could easily write several different papers on, though will I only be writing the one required for my class? Yes.


One of my favorite quotes from Wise Blood:

"Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he was not sure of his footing, where he might be walking on the water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown."

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