Wise Blood - Softcover

O'Connor, Flannery

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374505845 ISBN 13: 9780374505844

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1996

Synopsis

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his innate, desperate faith. He falls under the spell of a "blind" street preacher names Asa Hawks and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter, Lily Sabbath. In an ironic, malicious gesture of his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawks, Hazel Motes founds the The Church Without Christ, but is still thwarted in his efforts to lose God. He meets Enoch Emery, a young man with "wise blood," who leads him to a mummified holy child, and whose crazy maneuvers are a manifestation of Hazel's existential struggles. This tale of redemption, retribution, false prophets, blindness, blindings, and wisdom gives us one of the most consuming characters in modern fiction.

About this title

Review:

"I was more impressed by "Wise Blood than any novel I have read for a long time. Her picture of the world is literally terrifying. Kafka is almost the only one of our contemporaries who has achieved such effects. I have tremendous admiration for the work of this young writer."--Caroline Gordon
"No other major American writer of our century has constructed a fictional world so energetically and forthrightly charged by religious investigation."--Brad Leithauser, "The New Yorker
"This is a tale in which pathos tips into pathology and violence, answered by a penance of self-mutilation and suffering. Yet the prose is absolutely brilliant, sentence by sentence, simile by simile, and so relentlessly inventive it feels comic." --Marilynne Robinson, "New York Times Book Review"
"No other major American writer of our century has constructed a fictional world so energetically and forthrightly charged by religious investigation." --Brad Leithauser, "The New Yorker" "I was more impressed by "Wise Blood" than any novel I have read for a long time. Her picture of the world is literally terrifying. Kafka is almost the only one of our contemporaries who has achieved such effects. I have tremendous admiration for the work of this young writer." --Caroline Gordon

This is a tale in which pathos tips into pathology and violence, answered by a penance of self-mutilation and suffering. Yet the prose is absolutely brilliant, sentence by sentence, simile by simile, and so relentlessly inventive it feels comic. "Marilynne Robinson, New York Times Book Review"

No other major American writer of our century has constructed a fictional world so energetically and forthrightly charged by religious investigation. "Brad Leithauser, The New Yorker"

I was more impressed by "Wise Blood" than any novel I have read for a long time. Her picture of the world is literally terrifying. Kafka is almost the only one of our contemporaries who has achieved such effects. I have tremendous admiration for the work of this young writer. "Caroline Gordon""

"This is a tale in which pathos tips into pathology and violence, answered by a penance of self-mutilation and suffering. Yet the prose is absolutely brilliant, sentence by sentence, simile by simile, and so relentlessly inventive it feels comic." --Marilynne Robinson, New York Times Book Review

"No other major American writer of our century has constructed a fictional world so energetically and forthrightly charged by religious investigation." --Brad Leithauser, The New Yorker

"I was more impressed by Wise Blood than any novel I have read for a long time. Her picture of the world is literally terrifying. Kafka is almost the only one of our contemporaries who has achieved such effects. I have tremendous admiration for the work of this young writer." --Caroline Gordon

Book Description:

One of the most gifted and startling writers to have come out of the American South.' V. S. Pritchett

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0374505845
• ISBN 13: 9780374505844
• Binding: Paperback