BOOK 124: WISE BLOOD: FLANNERY O'CONNOR
Wise Blood is the first novel by American author Flannery O'Connor,
published in 1952.
The novel was assembled from several disparate stories first published in Mademoiselle,
Sewanee Review, and Partisan Review. The first
chapter is an expanded version of her Master's thesis, "The Train,"
and other chapters are reworked versions of "The Peeler," "The
Heart of the Park," and "Enoch and the Gorilla." The novel
concerns a returning World War II
veteran who, haunted by a lifelong crisis of faith, resolves
to form an anti-religious
ministry in an eccentric Southern town.
The novel received little critical
attention when it first appeared, but has since come to be appreciated as a
somewhat unique work of "low comedy and high seriousness" with
enduring if disturbing religious themes. It was placed 62nd in The Guardian's list of 100
greatest novels of all time.
A film was made of Wise Blood in 1979,
directed by John Huston,
and starring Brad Dourif
as Hazel Motes and John Huston himself as the evangelist grandfather. Shot
mostly in Macon, Georgia, it is a fairly literal filming of the novel.
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