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Book Review of Wise Blood

Wise Blood
Wise Blood
Author: Flannery O'Connor
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
kickerdad avatar reviewed on + 114 more book reviews


"Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor. Southern Gothic, huh? This is far from something I would normally pick up to read. After driving past Andalusia, her family farm, near Milledgeville, Georgia the last 4 1/2 years dropping off or picking up daughters at Georgia College, when a copy showed up in their stack of books to 'get rid of' I took the opportunity to read it.

It's an easy read but it was odd. Easily one of the weirdest things I've ever read (and I've read a bit of Lovecraft)! While the characters are intense and strongly represent portions of social archetypes, I felt like each was missing something. Possibly as O'Connor intended? I found myself distracted trying to figure out how all these odd characters inter-related - only to realize that they didn't, not really. Again, intentional?

"Wise Blood" means intuition, but it is also the 'learning you get from your family'. For all the main characters, their "correct" intuitive decisions open a path to chaos collectively. While blatantly sacrilegious on the surface the book pokes at ethical morality on a deeper level.

Didn't love it. Didn't hate it. Had a hard time connecting to any of the characters. Simple to read except for some regional dialect. [3.5/5]