The Violent Bear It Away, by Flannery O'Connor

As I've said before, I really do try to like Flannery O'Connor.  I just don't.  The Violent Bear It Away doesn't do anything to help me like her more.  In this short novel, Young Tarwater lives out in the middle of the wood with his crazy old great uncle.  He's never been to school and rarely sees another human, much less town.  When his great uncle dies, Tarwater is faced with life on his own.  He decides to head into town to live with his uncle, a school teacher, and his cousin, who has an intellectual disability.

The problem is, great uncle was a nut, a self-proclaimed prophet who instilled his nuttiness in young Tarwater.  The boy decided it was his mission to baptize his disabled cousin, but the uncle would have nothing of it.  He tried his best to educate young Tarwater and help him see the futility of their uncle's crazy ways, but the boy, well, he stays crazy, with tragic results.

There is no question that O'Connor is a great writer.  Not a page of the story goes by without a remarkable phrase or sentence that bears rereading.  But O'Connor drives me crazy with her depiction of Christianity.  The only Christians are completely bonko, and the reasonable people in the story reject Christianity.  I know there are several layers of symbolism in O'Connor's religious themes, but my simple mind doesn't read her as someone who is a faithful Christian with an important message about her faith (although she supposedly was a faithful Catholic) but as someone who has serious issues with Christianity.  (Here I go again, revealing my shallowness. . . .)

I don't like to read O'Connor.  But she strangely draws me in and compels me to read her work.  Maybe one of these days I'll actually enjoy it.