This is an audio recording of a scene from Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood. Hazel Motes, a tormented and blinded preacher of the fledgling “Church Without Christ” is persistently haunted by that “ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind” — a figure he tries to escape, yet can’t. In this scene Hazel Motes…
Tag: Flannery O’Connor
What happens when something that you don’t understand and want to escape ends up pulling you in and throws your whole world off balance? That’s the question at the heart of Flannery O’Connor’s darkly comic novel Wise Blood. We meet Hazel Motes, a World War II veteran. He’s pursued by Christ, and he is desperate to evade him. Then there’s…
Every page of Flannery O’Connor’s 1960 novel The Violent Bear It Away is a haunting read. The narrative is uncomfortable, the rich imagery captivating and at times suffocating; it’s as if every forest, highway, sky and human interaction is steeped in a mystery that the mind can never fully understand. O’Connor sets the tone of her story with a Scripture…
On December 3, 2020, I gave a presentation and facilitated a community learning session over Zoom entitled “Faith and Doubt in Literature.” The session was part of an Advent educational series spearheaded by St. Joseph’s Parish in Ottawa, Canada. We explored how British poet Philip Larkin, American author Flannery O’Connor and Canadian poet/songwriter Leonard Cohen grappled with the transcendental in…