Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The darkly comic heart ...

... Preacher Problems: John Huston and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Somebody should send Richard Dawkins a copy.

2 comments:

  1. As I have been noting at my blog (Novels, Stories, and More), there are some aspects of WISE BLOOD that are virtually irreducible to analysis; it is a novel in which that which is temporal and that which is sacramental collide, and I am left staggering after the experience.

    At any rate, thanks, Frank, for posting this new perspective on John Huston and the film version of WISE BLOOD.

    Yes, Dawkins should be sent a copy, but I do not believe (no pun intended) that it would make much of an impression on him. His mind is made up, and I doubt that O'Connor's voice (even in her prophetic power) would have much impact upon Dawkins. I am simply content that O'Connor has affected me, and that--after all--is all that we can ask of good literature: the personal engagement.

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  2. Postscript: I should have mentioned more clearly that my own engagement with WISE BLOOD continues at the following link (which I hope works properly):

    Wise Blood - An Autobiographical Criticism

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