Customer Reviews
The Best Book I Have Ever Read - By: , 20 Jan 2002 
Wise Blood will draw you in, make you laugh & make you think with its darkly humourous description of one man's struggle to make sense of his own existence. From the moment we meet Hazel Motes to the moment he leaves us behind, we travel to the heart of what it is to be human & livein a world that provides inadequate answers.
Puts Hannibal Lecter In His Place - The Dustbin - By: , 26 Jun 1999 
I am completely new to Flannery O'Connor although I have been aware of her through citationsin articles & books. 'Wise Blood' was portrayed as a 'comic novel' & while there were some very funny passages it certainly was not a humorous book.
A plot summary is simple enough. The central character, Hazel Motes, returns home after a spellin the army during the second world war. His time is only alluded toin an elliptical manner which is confusing - deliberately so on the part of O'Connor. He has been the son of a preacher & he sets out to preach the Church of the Unrisen Christ. There follow a series of misadventures - none of which are especially comic aside from a wonderful chapter wherein a competitor preacher sets up opposite Hazel on the street to preach a 'true' (although corrupt) message.
Hazel ends up discredited & blinds himself after which he becomes dependant on the landlady where he lodges. He eventually dies & there the novel ends.
If this sounds uninspiring it may bein part because the novel is indeed a strange, disconnected narrative.
However, the great strength of the book is the character of Enoch Emery & his disturbed psyche. He latches onto Hazel who rejects him. (Thus O'Connor inverts one of our expectations, that the misfits will form a duo. They never do, after she sets up the expectation that they WILL.) In one of the strangest things I've ever read, Enoch kills a man who isin a gorilla suit at the promotion of a 'Tarzan' like film. The build-up to this is quite compelling, & the violence - never describedin detail - nevertheless issues from the description of one of the most deranged minds I've ever read about.
The strange things is - after this crime we never see Enoch again, he is dropped from the narrative & there is no police investigation. (Likewise, Hazel kills towards the end of the book & this to passes unnoticed.) These narrative dislocations are very unsettling, & I suspect they are there to throw these bizarre acts into relief, as if they are utterly removed from what we normally take to be 'ordinary life'.
If it sounds like I did not like the book then you are probably right. However, the depiction of Enoch is absolutely compelling because his irrational violence & strange compulsions are presented as having their own internal logic, but a logic we cannot enter into in. Severe violence comes out of nowhere - either 'evil' (if, like O'Connor, you are a Catholic) or the 'irrational'.
For anybody who has read 'Hannibal' this is a far superior read. Oh, it is not slick or well-plotted, it is often strange & downright annoying (too many narrative dislocations & you start to wonder if the lady can even tell a story). However, the ridiculous character of Lecter - this mix of Lord Byron, Glenn Gould, Louis Pasteur & Raffles or James Bond - does not just glamourize violence, it trivializes it. Extreme violence is not aesthetically pleasing, & it does not issue from highly cultured 'supermen'. (Which is not to say that wealthy & sophisticated people have not been known to kill.)
'Wise Blood' portrays violence & psychic disorder with power & rawness.
P. S. - The chapter about Enoch killing the man was originally a short story 'Enoch And The Gorilla' & can be foundin the short stories. It is worth reading on its won.
