wise blood

“The Church Without Christ…where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way.” – Wise Blood

I’m a huge fan of Flannery O’Connor so when someone asked me to name my favourite novel I said Wise Blood.

Partly because the characters are, if not wholly understood, at least wholly familiar. Despite growing up around an assortment of Evangelicals and Foundation types I managed for the most part to maintain a pretty superficial view of them. Things like snake handling and female oppression were odd but ordinary and because of this ordinary I never spent too much time thinking about the misguided spirituality that a lot of it sat upon. Through a glass darkly, and all that.

Mostly, I’m moved to recommend Wise Blood again and again because it’s such a brilliantly layered and grotesque comedy with powerful and appealing themes of integrity, the disaffected young and redemption. It’s just one of those books you never really walk away from. Not really.

What about you. If you had to name your favourite novel: What would it be?