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Loading... The Violent Bear It Away: A Novelby Flannery O'Connor
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  StephenBarkley | Jul 28, 2009 |  Astonishing work! I can't believe I had not read this much sooner. I was hooked from the first paragraph. (  ) donwest | Jul 22, 2008 | 3773. The Violent Bear It Away, by Flannery O'Connor (read 24 July 2003) This is the 4th book by O'Connor I've read. It is a weird book about mentally unbalanced people, well-written and stark and powerful and I suppose dripping with symbolism which I did not understand. But I am glad I read it as it is a classic of its genre. (  ) Schmerguls | Nov 12, 2007 | geneg | Jul 22, 2007 | I am ambivalent. On the one hand her scary, powerful prose and imagery are awesome. The book reads like some kind of art house movie where all the characters are ugly and sweaty; there is little background music; and the sparse dialogue is bizarre, yet enthralling. Everything in this book from the characters, to the events, to the settings is grotesque. And this is impressive, but also depressing and confusing. Besides a vow never to walk the backwoods of the rural South - I take away perplexion. What was the point? Why did everyone want to drown poor Bishop? Why did he travel all the way back to Powderhead, just to leave again? Why did he burn all the bushes? WHY?! ( ) jhowell | May 2, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0374505241, Paperback)First published in 1960, The Violent Bear It Away is now a landmark in American literature. It is a dark and absorbing example of the Gothic sensibility and bracing satirical voice that are united in Flannery O'Conner's work. In it, the orphaned Francis Marion Tarwater and his cousins, the schoolteacher Rayber, defy the prophecy of their dead uncle--that Tarwater will become a prophet and will baptize Rayber's young son, Bishop. A series of struggles ensues: Tarwater fights an internal battle against his innate faith and the voices calling him to be a prophet while Rayber tries to draw Tarwater into a more "reasonable" modern world. Both wrestle with the legacy of their dead relatives and lay claim to Bishop's soul. O'Connor observes all this with an astonishing combination of irony and compassion, humor and pathos. The result is a novel whose range and depth reveal a brilliant and innovative writers acutely alert to where the sacred lives and to where it does not. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:09 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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O’Connor has an uncanny ability to get inside the minds of the characters she’s created and explain their thoughts like no one else. The characters are vivid, and remain with you after you put the book down.
Another aspect of the book that made it so compelling was the complexity of the character’s motivations. In the middle of the book, I couldn’t imagine what to hope for as a resolution. In the end, I wasn’t sure whether to cheer or cringe.
If you want a novel that will stick with you, and challenge both the vacuosity of secularism and the terror of fundamentalism, this is your book. (