Notes on Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Wise Blood’ (with spoilers)
“All comic novels that are any good must be about life and death” wrote Flannery O’Connor in her note to the second edition of her debut novel ‘Wise Blood’.
When I first read this book I was attracted to the gothic atmosphere and the ironic , distorted images of humankind. I took it to be a satire on religious extremism, having no idea at the time that the author was a devout Catholic and that for her the slogan ‘Jesus Saves’ was meant as a statement of fact.
Despite her unwavering belief in grace and salvation, O’Connor knew full well the criticisms against the faithful and the arguments for atheism. Instead of mounting a defence of the Catholic Church, she presents the anti-religious viewpoint through the voice of the absurdist central character Hazel Motes. He is a deeply troubled 18 year old who returns to a deserted home town of Eastrod after being discharged from the army. All his family are dead. He is alone, rootless and faithless.
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I chanced upon this slim volume at the excellent 
With this novella’s strong focus on the burden of mortality and the melancholy reflections on ‘what-ifs’ from the past, it seems to me that, not for the first time, 
In 1926, aged 22, Graham Greene converted from Atheism to Catholicism.
