REVIEW: Wise Blood (Flannery O'Connor)

Please note: this review has been plucked directly from my Goodreads account.  There are some slight differences in formatting, but essentially everything else is going to be the same.  Since I can't do a "Spoiler" tag in the HTML here (which would have been AWESOME), I'm going to just tell you right off the bat that there are spoilers in this post.  I spoil the ending of Wise Blood, so if you don't want to know how it ends (and it's a shocker!) then please don't read any further.

Thanks!

-Emmy

*****

Wow...Um, okay....So, I have a lot of thoughts about this book.

For the first bit, I really didn't like it.  I must have read the first three to five pages again and again and again, because I just couldn't get into it.  But then, I started listening to it on audio.  The narrator, Bronson Pinchot, is not my favorite.  (I tried listening to his reading of The Alchemaster's Apprentice and it just sounded all wrong to my ears).  He was much better in this book--I really liked the voices he gave to Hazel, Encoh, and Onnie Jay Holy--but there were still a handful of times when I thought that he missed the author's intentions, or that the characterization was off.  For example, for some reason, even when she was supposed to be yelling and screaming, Sabbath's voice never seemed to rise above a whisper.

But, enough about the audio.  In terms of the book itself...well, I still have issues.  I'll admit, I was incredibly invested.  I found Hazel Motes to be a fascinating character.  And even though Enoch had his fair share of issues, I found that I really liked him, too.  Perhaps that's why the ending bothered me so much.

As I'm given to understand, Enoch's story ends with him stealing a gorilla suit and running off to his new life...as an ape?  Does he intend to travel around pretending to be Gonga?  Does he just want to live freely?  Will being a hand-shaking ape allow him to make more friends?  Is this his way of making the human connections that he was lacking?  I don't entirely understand.

But, it wasn't Enoch's end that bothered me.  It was Haze's.  First, there was that shockingly brutal scene where he murders the True Prophet.  I know he was scared that Shoats was replacing him, and that seeing his double freaked him out, but he straight up murders the man by driving over him a couple of times with his car!  The scene was so simple, so matter of fact that you have to remind yourself that something horrible has just happened.  That it's meant to shock, to horrify.

And then there's Hazel's fate.  When he takes the bucket of lime up to his room, I thought that he was going to chicken out like Hawkes did.  And when he doesn't, I just couldn't believe it.  But, it got worse.  He's got rocks and glass in his shoes, barbed wire wrapped around his waist, and he's literally dying in a ditch after his landlady tries to blackmail him into marrying her...and he's beaten to death by a cop!

I read those last few pages and then just sat there.  Just processing what I had read.  What was the point of all that?

I've been thinking about it for a couple of hours now, and I think I understand the meaning of the ending.  At least a little.  Haze spends the entire book trying to preach his "Church Without Christ", without success.  At the heart of it all, Hazel believes far more than he would like to admit.  And his vehement denial of Christ actually breaks him in the end.   The human heart is made to love and know God.  And O'Connor's deeply Catholic message here is that the denial of God, which is in turn a denial of the most deep and abiding human part of us, is ultimately self-destructive.  The rocks and barbed wire and punishments; Hazel is trying to repent for something he can't even bring himself to acknowledge as a sin.  But, in the end, it's too much for him and he dies under the wight of his own denial.

The more I think about this book, the more conflicted I get.  And perhaps that's the point.  Perhaps we're supposed to think about this story long after we finish.  And I know I have a lot to think about.  Hazel Motes will be lingering in my mind for a long time to come.

100 CC #1: Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck)

When I was in high school, John Steinbeck was my favorite writer.  Rereading Tortilla Flat after all these years has reminded me why.  When it comes to books, there are those that you read, those that you experience, and those that you climb into and live in for a while.  Steinbeck's short novels have always had that effect on me.  In particular, it is those novellas that focus on a group or a small town that really had the most profound effect, especially Cannery Row, Sweet Thursday, and of course Tortilla Flat.

This is the story of Danny and his friends, a group of paisanos, which Google tells me is a group of Spanish or Italian peasants.  Growing up, I always looked at them as poor Mexican/American immigrants, so I guess I was a bit close.  Basically, they are a group of poor ruffians who go on adventures, stealing wine and chasing women until they accidentally draft themselves into the war in a drunken fit of courage.  Upon returning, Danny, who becomes the leader, learns that his grandfather has died and left him an inheritance: two houses.  In a social circle where no one else has a house, let alone two, this is a huge boon for Danny, but his friends worry that it will make him distant and aloof.  But, instead, this newfound property draws to it a ragtag group of characters, including righteous Pilon, clever Pablo, and the humanitarian Jesus Maria.

Despite taking place in 1930s California, this story is a retelling of the exploits of Arthur and his knights.  Our heroes go on adventures, feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.  They give offerings to the saints and punish scoundrels and cheats.  It is a beautiful, romanticized story of a group of men just living out their lives.  I have two quotes which I think apply here.  One came from the back of my copy and is attributed to William Rose Benet: 

The extraordinary humors of these curiously childlike natives are presented with a masterly touch.  These silly bravos are always about to do something nice for each other, their hearts are soft and easily touched: and yet almost absentmindedly they live with atrocious disregard for scruple.

And this second comes not from Tortilla Flat, but from another Steinbeck favorite, Cannery Row:

Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,” and he would have meant the same thing.

This is one of my favorite books, and for good reason.  It captures an essential glimpse of humanity, and romanticizes it so that each character becomes more than himself, larger than life.  It's hard to really capture the essence of Steinbeck in a review like this, not if you really experience him the way I do.  That's not meant to sound pretentious.  I'm just saying that my experience is hard to put into words ;)  If you're looking for something to read, and would like to try Steinbeck, this is a great place to start.  But, be warned: this is not a book that can be read fast.  It must first be experienced and savored, like a fine wine or a rich dessert.  Never rush Steinbeck.  You'll miss out on so much.

100 Classics Challenge

So, I know it has been a little while since I've posted, but I'm excited to announce a new reading challenge!  I'm finding that my summer reading theme of "professional fan-fiction" is just not working for me right now...because I'm finding that I would rather read the classics which inspired these books than the adaptations.  So, I had an idea.  What if I just read the classics and skipped the rewrites?  So, I decided to do that instead.  But, summer is almost over, with just about a month left.  So, again, I had an idea.  This challenge, which I'm calling the 100 Classics Challenge (or 100 CC for short) is going to be an ongoing program, starting now and going until I finish (few months?  few years?  Who knows?).  I'm not going to read just classics in the time it takes me to finish, but when I do read one, I'll include a review of it here.

As always, if you would like to follow along, please feel free to do so.  Also, feel free to suggest titles in the comments.  And if you want to participate on your own blog, let me know so I can see what classics you're reading!

As for what makes a classic, here's what I'm going off of.  These are the books that are still be published today, even if they were written twenty, thirty, or even 100 years ago.  This means no "modern" classics.  I'm not going to be reading Harry Potter, for example, but I might pick up Ragtime, since it's more of a "classic".  Titles like Silas Marner, David Copperfield, and Frankenstein are all fair game, as are more obscure books by writers of classics, like some of the lesser known works of PG Wodehouse or GK Chesterton.  For more ideas of what I'm going for, feel free to ask, or check out this guide by Italo Calvino.

As for what I'm reading right now, it's not a classic, per se, so I won't be posting right away.  But, I'm excited to start a new reading challenge and share this with all of you.  Hope you'll join in the fun!  Happy reading :)