Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

percy-l - Re: Reading list in order...

percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion on Walker Percy

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Alan Beck <dabeck AT iupui.edu>
  • To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Reading list in order...
  • Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 18:23:38 -0500 (EST)


Bryon,
I think the Kierkegaard connection is a strong one, especially his ideas
of repetition and rotation (especially in MG); but, to me, what Percy
seems to draw on the most are K's three spheres of existence: the
aesthetic, ethical, and the religious). My argument was that he relied on
the aesthetic and the ethical of K., but he replaced, for the most part,
K's religious with Marcel's intersubjectivity.

What I've been focusing on in my fiction class is that violence is seen as
a substitute for intersubjectivity (albeit a poor one). (For those list
veterans I apologize for the repetition.) I compare Lancelot with
Palahinuk's Fight Club. While I'm sick of teaching both books, I find that
my best response to Percy is through these similar but contrasting books.
FC, with its irony, irreverance, and quick, fast-paced scenes, along with
its nihilism, appeals to the MTV generation. While FC ends in a scary,
paranoid type of hopelessness, L. offers a light of hope to the reader.
Students seem to relate to both (though I'd love to teach MG again, a book
that most of them despised). Maybe I'll use Love in the Ruins next
semester.

Enough ramblings. Feel free to agree, disagree, etc. We need to do some
collective CPR to get this list breathing again.
-David


On Wed, 25 Sep 2002, Bryon McLaughlin wrote:

> David Beck,
>
> Thank you for the response. That makes a lot of sense. I took a graduate
> course on Percy in seminary and had difficulty figuring out his ties to
> Kier. beyond a superficial level with regard to solutions to the dilemnas
> of existence. Percy's appropriation of Marcel seem to me to be a better
> explanation of where Percy ended up. Further, it just makes more
> psychological sense. Autonomy and self-actualization is difficult to
> imagine, if not impossible, without "the other(s)." Thanks for taking the
> time to respond.
>
> Bryon McLaughlin
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Alan Beck [mailto:dabeck AT iupui.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 5:42 PM
> To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
> Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order...
>
>
>
> In that email, I was, once again, riding my hobby horse. My grad work was
> on Percy and how the synthesis of Kierkegaard and Marcel is needed to
> best understand Percy's fiction. Kierkegaard's "diagnosis" of modern
> society is correct, but his "remedy"--the lone "knight of faith"--isn't
> found in Percy. Percy uses Marcel's "intersubjectivity" as the remedy to
> the man's (woman's) modern condition. It is through "the other" that one
> finds himself. For example, Lancelot finds hope when he "sees" Fr. John.
> They "connect" eye-to-eye and achieve intersubjectivity. L. is just one
> example. In my opnion, none of Percy's fiction contains someone finding
> himself outside of interaction (communion--to use a more Christian term)
> with the other. (Of course, Buber and Levinas offer similar ideas, but
> Marcel's "version"--due probably to being Catholic and seeing the
> necessity of the sacred in and of the material world--is more
> incarnational and fits more closely with Percy's worldview (as portrayed
> in his fiction. I offer the qualifier because I never met him. Maybe
> Marcus or Nikki can chime in.).
>
> David Beck
>
> "One cannot help but awe when he contemplates
> the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the
> marvelous structure of reality. It is enough
> if one tries merely to comprehend a little of
> this mystery every day."
> - Albert Einstein
>
>
>
> --
> An archive of all list discussion is available at
> <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>.
> Visit the Walker Percy Project at <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy>.
>
>
> --
> An archive of all list discussion is available at
> <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/hypermail>.
> Visit the Walker Percy Project at <http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy>.
>
>
>


David Beck

"One cannot help but awe when he contemplates
the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the
marvelous structure of reality. It is enough
if one tries merely to comprehend a little of
this mystery every day."
- Albert Einstein






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page