Wise Blood

Flannery O'Connor is a better short fiction writer than novelist. Of her two novels, “The Violent Bear It Away” is better.

“Wise Blood” is an interesting Southern Gothic novel about Hazel, a young World War II veteran who, probably because of his experiences in the war, has become a militant atheist. Everyone he meets he assumes is a Christian and feels a need to convert to a life without Jesus. He even becomes a preacher of sorts for what he calls the “Church Without Christ.” His own belief system is muddled and tenets he believes at one point he questions at another.

Along the way, he meets a number of interesting characters, such as a supposedly blind street preacher and his daughter, a prostitute who always leaves him feeling worse after their time together, and a manic zookeeper.

Hazel becomes obsessed with Jesus more so than most Christians and that leads him to an unexpected character arc.

The novel's main problem is that because all of the characters are so grotesque and exaggerated, it's hard to sympathize with any of them. The other problem is that there is minimal plot and characters develop rather slowly with a lot of repetition.

It's an interesting and thought-provoking story, but a highly flawed one.