First published in 1952
Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
Blobbists, I'm not really sure what Wise Blood is about. The book on the back says lots of things about how it's about religion and faith and looking for things and blindness but in my opinion, it wasn't really about anything. I can tell you that there was one 'main' character, Hazel Motes; that the rest of the characters are other inhabitants of the town of Macon, Georgia, including a teenage boy, Enoch Emery, a blind man in dark glasses who preaches and his daughter, Sabbath Hawks, and the landlady for Hazel at the end, Mrs. Flood. Hazel seems lost, and after mostly wandering aimlessly around, he decides to found "The Church without Christ". He ends up in a weird sort of bidding war with the other preachers (and moneygrubbers) in town, eventually runs the blind man away (who is not, in fact blind), sleeps with Sabbath for a while, and then towards the end, actually does blind himself in the way that the blind man had supposedly blinded himself (throwing lye at his own face. I know, so great.) So yeah. That's basically what happens. It's supes weird.
Spoiler Over: Continue Here
Well blello, blobbists!
I guess I get the whole Southern Gothic feel of Flannery O'Connor, but I just really despised everyone in this book, which made it impossible for me to like reading it. I can't say I recommend it, and if it's a favorite of yours, sorry I couldn't get into it. I finished it a week ago and it's taken me this long to blob on it because I didn't want to spend any more time thinking about it.
So with that in mind, I'll keep this post Short and Sweet and then we'll pop on to other things, shall we?
Calling Hazel 'Haze'
The author starts referring to Hazel as Haze at various points, which felt weirdly intimate, considering that (a) Hazel is deeply unfriendly (b) we have no relationship to the narrator (they're not sharing special insight or anything) and (c) I don't feel like Hazel would want to be called by a nickname, because he seems VERY ornery. So yeah. That just felt weird.
Zingers from Hazel:
One of the only things I liked about the book were Hazel's occasional persnickety zingers.
If you've been redeemed, I wouldn't want to be. Lol. Ya burnt.
THIS SHIFFER-ROBE BELONGS TO HAZEL MOTES.
DO NOT STEAL IT OR YOU WILL BE HUNTED DOWN AND KILLED. Good to mark your stuff.
Driver: 'You look like a preacher. That hat looks like a preacher's hat.'
Hazel: 'It ain't. It's just a hat.' lol.
'Mr. Motes, here's a dollar bill and some change in this waste basket. You know where your waste basket is. How did you make that mistake?'
'It was left over. I didn't need it.'
'Do you throw it away every month?'
'Only when it's left over.' Hey Hazel, wanna throw your waste basket money my way?
Things I didn't like
n* word, tricking n*s, hurting n*s
So, it was hard to tell what was ironic and/or commentary, but either way, there was WAYYYYYYY too much casual use of the n word in this book. All by white people, always derogatory, always awful. I'm not here for it, don't want it, not interested.
Lines I liked:
- The outline of a skull under his skin was plain and insistent.
- He had a strong confidence in his power to resist evil; it was something he had inherited, like his face, from his grandfather.
- The misery he had was a longing for home; it had nothing to do with Jesus.
- I can smell the sin on your breath.
- Enoch never nagged his blood to tell him a thing until it was ready.
- I never known how to make the natural sweetness inside me show.
Words that were new to me:mandrill - a large West African monkey that has a red and blue face and a very short tail
shrike - carnivorous passerine birds. The family name, and that of the largest genus, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known as butcherbirds because of their feeding habits
Well there we go folks! My neighbor (for reasons unknown) is BLASTING Christmas music despite it being April, and I need to go find some quiet hole to hide from this cognitive dissonance. Off I go!
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