Famous Last Line

“She sat staring with her eyes shut, into his eyes, and felt as if she had finally got to the beginning of something she couldn’t begin, and she saw him moving farther and farther away, farther and farther into the darkness until he was the pin point of light.”

This quote belongs to Flannery O'Connor. O’ Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia and died on August 3, 1964. She went to school at the University of Iowa for her master’s degree and after studying the poem The Geranium, started publishing and working on her own works. Her writing is based in the south and usually has a religious theme in it. O’ Conner drew from her experiences being Catholic in the South.

The book that this quote comes from is called Wise Blood. The book follows a WWII veteran named Hazel Mote who comes home bitter from the war. After seeing and experiencing all the horrors of war, he begins to resent his old faith and resolves to create an anti-religious church. Throughout the book, he meets certain characters and defines them based on if they have wise blood- “an idea that one has innate, worldly knowledge of what direction to take in life, and requires no spiritual or emotional guidance”. Trying to start his church, Mote finally begins to realize what the meaning of life is and that sometimes we wear more than one face.

I am still on the fence about this book. There are some humorous parts in the plot, but there are a lot of serious thematic elements that I don’t know if they would ruin the book. Also, I love the setting that the book takes place in, but maybe not the content that is explored in the book.