The Violent Bear It Away in A Book Walks Into a Bar

May 25, 2016 Travis rated it it was amazing

The Violent Bear It Away is a grueling portrait of religious fanaticism. The three main characters--Mason Tarwater, Francis Tarwater, and George Rayber--are beset with character defects (arrogance, willful ignorance, angry dispositions, violent tendencies, selfishness, a general lack of any real social skills) largely derived from their religious background that make them nearly completely unlikable with little room for any sympathy from the readers.

The novella is permeated by a general sense of The Violent Bear It Away is a grueling portrait of religious fanaticism. The three main characters--Mason Tarwater, Francis Tarwater, and George Rayber--are beset with character defects (arrogance, willful ignorance, angry dispositions, violent tendencies, selfishness, a general lack of any real social skills) largely derived from their religious background that make them nearly completely unlikable with little room for any sympathy from the readers.

The novella is permeated by a general sense of alienation, with none of the characters at home in the world. Rayber, more so than the other two, seems to have made a home in the world, but at the cost of constantly battling with his demons to maintain his sanity, and even he is rather socially inept and given to violence and anger. There is no peace in this novel, just a continual pursuit of illusory peace (for Mason Tarwater: religion; for Francis Tarwater: trying to ascertain whether to follow in Mason's footsteps or not; for Rayber: trying to come to grips with his own past while dealing with his disabled son and estranged wife and then with his newly arrived, hostile nephew) and no sign of reaching the desired destination, no sign of hope anywhere on the horizon.

From the beginning, the reader has a sense of foreboding, that the story of this young man, Francis Tarwater, will not end well. (view spoiler) For most of the last half of the book, Francis is plagued by nausea, and so, too, is the reader: the story is sickening--certainly psychologically sickening and, for many readers, physically nauseating as well.

This story is the antithesis of a feel-good story. If an enterprising young filmmaker wanted to shoot an anti-Hallmark Channel movie, she or he could hardly find better material than The Violent Bear It Away.

And yet in spite of its relentlessly oppressive nature, in spite of being haunted by a profound pessimism from beginning to end, the story is absolutely compelling. We may not like any of the main characters and may hardly feel any sympathy at all for them, but we want to hear their stories. We want to see whether our expectations are, sadly, fulfilled, or whether they are are overturned and the story redeemed. (view spoiler)

The title is taken from the words of Jesus, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away." (This is the traditional Catholic translation; most Protestant translations have the final clause as, "and the violent take it by force.") There has been much debate among New Testament scholars as to what Jesus meant in this passage, but for O'Connor, from my reading of this novella, it seems that she intends to communicate that religion has been hijacked by the violent: the Mason Tarwaters of the world have taken her religion by force; they have taken her religion and transformed it into something of which she deeply disapproves just like Jesus's enemies (the Roman authorities) were, much to Jesus's dismay, destroying the Judaism of his day. John the Baptist, a Jewish ascetic known for his extreme piety, had been killed by Herod, a Roman puppet, and Jesus, as an observant and pious Jew himself, was unhappy with the Roman-backed, Sadducean temple hierarchy, which was corrupting worship at the temple. O'Connor is, in my reading of the novella, saying that religion is still being born away by violence. Little of substance has changed since the time of Jesus.

Reading The Violent Bear It Away is an excursion in anguish, a journey into pain and despair. But O'Connor writes with such devastating honesty and provides such unapologetically candid ugliness in portraying her characters that we readers cannot look away; we are drawn to the darkness, to the ugliness, to the misery. We are pulled deeper and deeper into the story as it continues, hoping against hope for some degree of redemption, some drop of mercy and relief. (view spoiler) The Violent Bear It Away is one of the best examples of literature that realistically depicts the degenerative effects of religion, which is strangely and wonderfully ironic granted the piety of its author. ...more

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