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50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wa-a-ait a second..., December 28, 2004
This review is from: The Violent Bear It Away: A Novel (Paperback)
I think it's important to correct a common misperception that's been cropping up in the reviews here. I can understand how someone might come to the conclusion that The Violent Bear it Away is an exposure of, or an attack on, religious fanaticism, but I can say with almost absolute certainty that this was not the author's intention. Flannery O'Connor was a devout Roman Catholic, and nearly all of her stories (check out especially A Good Man is Hard to Find) carry a very extreme and uncompromising religious message. Everything connected with her - the other stories, her personal correspondence, and the text of Violent itself - suggest that it was meant as, crudely stated, an endorsement of fanaticism; or more accurately, a spiritual call to arms, and an attack of meek secularism. This doesn't mean that the book is only for religious people. Someone reading it from an antifanatic standpoint might well benefit, if only by discovering in the person of the author herself an example of the fanaticism they find so distasteful. A religious reader, though, should not be frightened away by all these reviews suggesting that The Violent is a plea for religious moderation. O'Connor's vision, above all, was radical and unconventional, and for either a religious, an agnostic or an antireligious reader, it presents something to think about.
As for the book itself, I only give it four stars because I think O'Connor's short stories are a better exploration of her themes. In the long form, instead of presenting a more nuanced view of the world, there is only room for more brutality and meanness; which isn't neccesarily a bad thing, but which isn't a good thing either. I would reccommend either of O'Connor's short story collections before The Violent, but for a fan of her work, The Violent is indispensable.
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finest work, June 14, 2000
This review is from: The Violent Bear It Away: A Novel (Paperback)
This book is probably O'Connor's finest work of fiction. The story itself is much stronger than the more highly acclaimed Wise Blood, as are its characters. I find it interesting that one reviewer referred to disliking the grotesque characters, while admiring O'Connor's use of symbolism and metaphor. One who has read O'Connor knows that there are few characters in the author's opus that could not be classified as grotesque. As far as her use of symbolism, one must certainly recognize that O'Connor's characters were the most obvious manifestations of her symbolism and metaphor. As she herself said, when drawing for a child, one makes the figure overly-clear. Also, while this book, might seem to tread between rational humanism and religion, the end finds O'Connor squarely on the side of the seemingly tyrannical, certainly unbalanced uncle. The story is funny, full of observation and commentary, and endowed with the wisdom of one who has seen the world and is on their way out, as O'Connor was by the time the Violent Bear it Away was written. In short, no library is complete without this work-the paramount achievement of one of the century's greatest authors.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
COMPELLING, but not for everyone, May 17, 2005
This review is from: The Violent Bear It Away: A Novel (Paperback)
What a compelling, gripping book, that I first read in September of 1996 and promised myself to read again someday. It has lost none of its power for me. Almost a thriller. After about halfway through, I simply couldn't put it down - again. The two main characters, Rayber and Tarwater, mesmerizing. But to correct a misconception - this book was published in 1960. And since Flannery was born in 1925, she was 40 when it first came out, a matter of simple math. Not 30, as one reviewer noted. She did not even complete the first draft until 1959.
About bible-belt southern poor, that, being from the South, I recognize and know. These people are not as far-fetched as many might think. Yet it is such an unlikely plot for such an incredible read.
Flannery, a life-long staunch Catholic, is not at all satirizing here. Quite plainly nature in the novel is used as a kind of sacrament, and Tarwater (the boy) does indeed emerge as the prophet from the wilderness (Powderhead). She sets Rayber, the intellectual humanist and rationalist against both the Tarwaters. Rayber is total commitment to disbelief; old Tarwater a total committment to faith. In the novel, there is no middle course. But Rayber's is the way of self-deception and self-destruction according to Flannery. In the end, he just collapses and that is all the further we hear of him. But Tarwater is given, so he comes to realize, a vision of his prophecy that he cannot deny, no matter what the cost to himself. In another time these people would not have been looked upon as freaks, mad and compulsive, certainly not in Biblical times.
Rayber's love for his son just dissolves, while Tarwater's vision for his nephew, young Tarwater, takes wing.
Of course, there is one staggering problem - that the boy Tarwater commits a murder on his way to salvation. Flannery seem not to consider this as of much importance. What exactly is Bishop to Rayber and the boy? I'm not sure. But I do know that this book is not easily forgotten, nor the questions it raises. Is it that Rayber, by constantly fighting against forces in himself, and thus denying his true nature, collapses, while the boy finally gives in? Read it and ask yourself.
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