This is such a strange book. I don’t know if it is better to review it or just give a list of thoughts and impressions without any rhyme or reason. Depending on how the reader goes about reading The Violent Bear It Away, said reader may find it repulsive, bizarre, enlightening, profound, or maybe just a combination of any or all of the above. Clearly this is a book that works very strongly in allegory and symbolism, so I think it best to take what is taking place on the surface level and find the symbolic aspect of it. In other words, in my opinion, this is a book best not taken at its face value.
And the one thing about reading O’Connor: she forces the reader to think. Through dark characters, elements, symbolism, conflict and themes, she not only makes a reader uncomfortable, but challenges their perceptions and values through these elements. Reading O’Connor is never a light or passive experience; she thrusts you (whether you are ready or not) quite often into a deeply troubled individual’s conscience and lets you stew around a bit and have to think with them. You must come to some conclusion along with them.
We see this in her final novel (and perhaps her most challenging) in the case of Francis Marion Tarwater. He is a teenager torn between the religious world of his fanatical great uncle , Mason Tarwater, has set for him and the atheistic world of his school teacher uncle, Rayber. Within this division, young Tarwater also encounters many forces and conflicts (physical, emotional) within the world that tempt him, or force him towards deciding to take one path or another. These two paths are pitted against each other and at odds in Tarwater’s conscience for the duration of the novel.
I think O’Conner has a profound way of capturing this conflict in her prose:
“…his mind had been engaged in a continual struggle with the silence that confronted him…It was a strange waiting silence. It seemed to lie all around him like an invisible country whose borders he was always on the edge of, always in danger of crossing.”
I have to say that that final chapter is quite profound. O’Connor really turns it up a notch and puts everything together so convincingly (at least, in my mind she does). There is such a sophisticated level of symbolism, a deeply intricate level of figurative meaning that I had to go back and reread passages a few times and read slower so I wouldn’t miss anything. O’Connor really ties it all together yet still manages to leave room for interpretation. It really was one of the more ponderous chapters I’ve read in a long time.
One of the rewards of reading O’Connor and her novel The Violent Bear it Away is that she continually makes the reader active and thinking about possibilities. I’ll be the first to profess that I’m still trying to put all the pieces together for this novel, but one of the beauties of reading is that we can find our own interpretations. The Violent Bear It Away is such a book that allows for various levels of analysis and discussion; it is not an easy experience by any means, but it's a book you can come back to and find a new level of interpretation. But, that’s totally fine, because I think we as readers need to be challenged to find meaning.
That being said, I do not believe this is the work for the first time reader of O'Connor to begin with. I think it would be best to begin with some of the stories in her collection. These stories often carry the same themes as her novels, but are a smaller sample size and a bit more focused and compact in their telling.
Although The Violent Bear It Away is at times dark, grotesque, and troubling, I think it is a profound work.
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Top reviews from other countries
Bluecashmere.
A powerful, original novel.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 4, 2012
Stephen Sharp
Don't bother reading it.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 18, 2021Bruno Leite
Trabalhoso, porém, justifica esse.
Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on February 10, 2019
