Day 79.1: The Violent Bore It Away
Aug. 3rd, 2024 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionAbsolutely shattered by the work.I thought the last parts dragged out a little but what a novel. Definitely Flannery O'Connor's apogee to me thus far. The writing is just extremely beautiful, the descriptions especially are weighted by that brooding tenor. Remarkable her ability to sustain that terrific, holy tenor throughout the novel - the imagery! I love, love that her faith means that the novel is pre-set, that the vise of destiny around Tarwater is inevitable and constantly tightening.
I think this is the sort of religion that I'm fascinated by: This notion of prophetic and religious destiny as something bloody but also fixed, a fact as intractable as any found physical law, and the way Tarwater falls into it, inevitably, in spite of the devil (because of the devil?) by his side is incredibly compelling. Here the religion is strange, which I think is a matter of religion being truthful to the reality it's in. Prophethood is a violent, fiery thing, with the induction into it involving murder, arson, nausea, hunger, rape, and sheer bloodyminded rejection of anything human. This god is alien and fisheyed. I think it fits.
I think I love this novel better than Gilead, as although that novel was quietly beautiful, this one I think smashes into the truth of things better for me. Also of course different religions - sort of - but still. What a read!
I think this is the sort of religion that I'm fascinated by: This notion of prophetic and religious destiny as something bloody but also fixed, a fact as intractable as any found physical law, and the way Tarwater falls into it, inevitably, in spite of the devil (because of the devil?) by his side is incredibly compelling. Here the religion is strange, which I think is a matter of religion being truthful to the reality it's in. Prophethood is a violent, fiery thing, with the induction into it involving murder, arson, nausea, hunger, rape, and sheer bloodyminded rejection of anything human. This god is alien and fisheyed. I think it fits.
I think I love this novel better than Gilead, as although that novel was quietly beautiful, this one I think smashes into the truth of things better for me. Also of course different religions - sort of - but still. What a read!
