New York : Noonday Press : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c1988.
243 p. ; 21 cm.
I saw the movie Wise Blood a long time ago in college, back when I was living in the South, and Flannery O'Connor fascinated me with her brooding and disturbing portrayals of people lost in moral quagmires of obsessions and religion.
Well, The Violent Bear it Away, does not stray far from religious obsessions - and their troubling effects on the subjects of the novel. The novel develops the intense conflict between Tarwater, an orphan raised to be a great prophet by his religiously crazed uncle and his nephew, Rayber - the strict rationalist - who is out to "cure" Tarwater of the effects of his upbringing.
The forces and personalities at the heart of the conflict hint at irreconcilable tragedy and the ending will leave the reader either satisfied at the resolution, or - as in my case - feeling that it was a bit contrived and rushed.
I can't say I'd recommend the novel to students, but a student looking for a southern writer to read and research might find O'Connor fascinating. Her writing is also interesting and tinged with dark humor.
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