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Wise Blood

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About this listen

Flannery O’Connor’s astonishing and haunting first novel is a classic of 20th-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes, a 22-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his innate, desperate faith. He falls under the spell of a “blind” street preacher named Asa Hawks and his degenerate 15-year-old daughter.

In an ironic, malicious gesture of his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawks, Hazel founds The Church of God 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, and wisdom gives us one of the most riveting characters in American fiction.

©1990 The Estate of Mary Flannery O’Connor (P)2010 Blackstone Audio Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction United States World Literature Fiction Witty Funny

Critic reviews

“No other major American writer of our century has constructed a fictional world so energetically and forthrightly charged by religious investigation.” ( The New Yorker)
“There is in Flannery O’Connor a fierceness of literary gesture, an angriness of observation, a facility for catching, as an animal eye in the wilderness, cunningly and at one sharp glance, the shape and detail and animal intention of enemy and foe.” ( The New York Times Book Review)
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Just discovered Flannery O'Connor and can't wait to read more of her work. Bronson Pinchot is a gifted narrator. Riveting. Highly recommended.

Superb storytelling. Fabulous narration.

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This is probably one of the weirdest books I've listened to. The entire cast was angry. Maybe it was the just the opinion of the guy who read it.

everyone seemed angry

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Great performance. Like glimpsing a man in a gorilla suit within a darkening wood, it gives the sensation of witnessing something mysterious and inexplicable but at the same time hinting of a darker truth.

American gothic

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Made me despair shallow cultural Christianity that at its best makes people feel better about themselves in a very general way (while still having them heading towards damnation) and at its worst is used self-righteously or cynically for power and wealth. I'm torn on the use of blashpemy and taking the Lord's name in vain, even though it feels suitable to the situation.
A gripping listen. The narrator was great with the voices of the different characters and probably made the story feel even more grotesque than it was on paper, which I found suitable.

Great narration

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Love the late Flannery O'connor 's style and the production allows her unusual use of language to flow.I'm glad of the introduction that says it's a comic novel,the situations that arise are darkly comic.

Beautiful to listen to.

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