Wise Blood

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's first novel, is the story of Hazel Motes who, released from the armed services, returns to the evangelical Deep South. There he begins a private battle against the religiosity of the community and in particular against Asa Hawkes, the 'blind' preacher, and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter. In desperation Hazel founds his own religion, 'The Church without Christ', and this extraordinary narrative moves towards its savage and macabre resolution. 'A literary talent that has about it the uniqueness of greatness.' Sunday Telegraph 'No other major American writer of our century has constructed a fictional world so energetically and forthrightly charged by religious investigation.' The New Yorker 'A genius.' New York Times

This 1995 volume of critical essays on Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's explosive first novelquestions our understanding of the 'Southern Gothic'.

Wise Blood: A Re-Consideration is a collection of nineteen new essays on Flannery O’Connor’s 1952 novel about the spiritual journey of a young man raised in a fundamentalist Christian family. Following the pattern of previous books in the Dialogue series, it offers analyses by established and emerging scholars in North America. The volume comprises five sections: Religious and Philosophical Thought; Comedy, Humor, and Animality in Wise Blood; Influences on Wise Blood; Structural Issues; and Gender, Culture, and Genre. An intensely religious novel by a Catholic author, Wise Blood continues to draw keen attention from literary scholars, theologians, preachers, and lay readers. This volume encompasses many new critical perspectives that will encourage greater insights, deeper understandings, and further investigations of the complexities of O’Connor’s modern classic set in the Deep South.

Contents: Wise Blood - A Good Man is Hard to Find - The Violent Bear It Away - Everything That Rises Must Converge - Stories and Occasional Prose - Letters.

When Dylan Fielding, celebrated contemporary visual artist, becomes Br. Thomas Augustine, novice at Our Lady of the Pines monastery, he finds delight not only in the shock his choice causes everyone around him but--to his own surprise--in the rhythms of the life itself. Shortly before he solidifies a lifelong commitment to the community, a traumatic encounter with an abusive priest plunges Thomas Augustine into terror and doubt. Reeling and uncertain, he reaches out to his friend, rival, and former lover, Angele Solomon, with hopes that she can help him to speak the difficult truth. As she attempts to advocate for her friend, Angele must ask how the scars left by their common past-as well as newer harms-can ever be healed or transcended. The wider inquiries demanded next will transfigure how both of them picture a range of human and divine things: time and memory; art and agency; trust and responsibility; and what it might mean to know real freedom.

Nothing in his rural New England upbringing could have prepared Colin Phelps for freshman year at an Ivy League college: the House Master crashes hall parties; public nudity is practically an intramural sport; and French intellectuals spouting arcane theories cast a spell over the undergraduates. Colin plunges into the hookup culture, competing with his brash, rule-breaking roommate. But as he soon discovers, the pursuit of transgression is fraught with unexpected pitfalls, and his suave pose must be stripped away if he is to find genuine freedom.

Over the past decade Dana Gioia has emerged as a compelling advocate of Christianity's continuing importance in contemporary culture. His incisive and arresting essays have examined the spiritual dimensions of art and the decisive role faith has played in the lives of artists. This new volume collects Gioia's essays on Christianity, literature, and the arts. His influential title essay ignited a national conversation about the role of Catholicism in American literature. Other pieces explore the often-harrowing lives of Christian poets and painters as well as contemplate scripture and modern martyrdom.