585. Everything That Rises Must Converge

Everything That Rises Must Converge
Flannery O'Connor
1965

Around 270 pages

I'm not going to lie to you, this is a tough time for us. We've got Pynchon on the horizon, and I believe Georges Perec is cooking up something weird down the pipeline. While ole Flann is not as bad as either of those bullies (yes, they bully me with their prose), her Southern Catholic stories are not my taste.

We get nine short stories here, and like many short story collections, it's a mixed bag. This was written near the end of Flannery's battle with lupus, so she's even more religious than usual. The stories deal with themes of spiritualism and race.

All the characters are so over the top, that I have a hard time connecting to them. If anybody expresses religious ambivalence, you know they are going to be struck down in some way. Extremists on either side usually eat it in her stories, in very dramatic ways. "The Enduring Chill" made me roll my eyes the hardest.

Not my thing.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

The title "Everything That Rises Must Converge" refers to a work by the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin titled the "Omega Point."

UP NEXT: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

550. The Violent Bear It Away

The Violent Bear It Away
Flannery O'Connor
1960
Around 260 pages

550! Can ya believe it? I totally can, I have been doing this longer than Sirius Black's stint in Azkaban. We celebrate with a Flannery O'Connor novel, which is not how I would have chosen to party. 

Francis Marion Tarwater was kidnapped by his great uncle and raised in a cabin in the woods. His great uncle believes that they are prophets. We've certainly had quite our share of wacky parental figures lately. Anyway, the great uncle dies, so Francis returns to his Uncle Rayber, who has long believed that Francis died. Rayber attempts to undo some of the damage that being kidnapped by a religious nutcase inflicted, but Francis rejects Rayber's secular reform as much as he resisted his great uncle's fanaticism. 

O'Connor was Catholic, and the main theme of this novel seemed to be that the well-educated modern blends faith and science, which are complementary. As somebody with religious trauma, I'm much more anti religion, certainly anti Catholic church, but of course anything in extremes is dangerous. 

Characters behaved outrageously and O'Connor explored themes that I'm not too interested in, so I thought this was kind of a bore.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

Final novel published before O'Connor's death.

UP NEXT: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

481. Wise Blood

Wise Blood
Flannery O'Connor
1952
Around 1952

I'm calling it, we are officially in a slump. Three flops in a row. I trust Papa to turn this ship around at the next entry. But I'm sure he has disappointed women before.

After suffering some war wounds, Hazel Motes returns to his family home in Tennessee to find it abandoned. Like many of us who were exposed to religion early, Motes is an atheist and intends to spread the religion of anti religion. He reaches out to a prostitute and becomes obsessed with spiritually corrupting a blind preacher's daughter.

Hazel is like the girl that claims to be over her boyfriend, but can't stop bashing him. From this novel it appears that O'Connor believes everybody has a god shaped hole in their heart. I'm clearly not a spiritual person, but that hasn't prevented me from enjoying religious authors on the List. However, I found every character in this story to be completely bananas, outside of their personal philosophies. Nobody reacted to anybody else's behavior in a believable way. This approach did give the story a biblical feel, but obviously that's not my style.

I think I was harder on Hazel because we've had three crazy protagonists in our last three entries, and I'm tired of reading about batshit men.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

PJ Harvey cited the novel as a huge inspiration for her writing on her album To Bring You My Love.

UP NEXT: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway