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

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  • From: chaslow53 AT aol.com
  • To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org ("Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Disc ussion")
  • Subject: RE: [percy-l] New reader
  • Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:48:12 -0400

I have very much enjoyed the activity on this list in the past several days.
Let me add just a few things, none of them original:

* WP did say that "lack of place" was one of the great things about
Covington. "...lack of identity, lack of placeness, even lack of history."
In Covington, "I didn't know anybody, had no kin." He subsequently said, as
I recall, that one of the things he enjoyed most about the town was that he
was less well known than the local Budweiser distributor.

* He left New Orleans for Covington in part because of the debilitating
effect of NO on the author's productivity. "The occupational hazard of the
writer in New Orleans is a variety of the French flu, which might be called
the Vieux Carre syndrome." Faulkner, he said, was "charmed to a standstill"
by NO.

* When I was in graduate school at the University of Cincinnati, I was such a
Thomas Wolfe fan (even though, or perhaps especially because, I was not an
English major) that I drove all night to get to Ashville to try to find his
grave (found it) and his mother's boarding house (never did).

* I was prevented from embarrassing myself by writing a letter to WP by
virtue of my ignorance. I had honestly never heard of him by the time of his
death. In fact, I never read a word until about three years ago. I
interviewed an applicant for the job of departmental assistant. This was her
first job, and she was an English major. Well, there's not much to ask folks
in a first job interview, so, because she was an English major, I asked her
who her favorite author was. She told me that it was Walker Percy, and I
just on a whim a few days later picked up The Moviegoer. Wow, what a
revelation.

* Although WP was spared, I did have my "here's a letter for a famous person"
phase. I wrote an indignant and bombastic letter to Pope Paul VI to express
my utter horror at the thought that he would CONSIDER taking the Mass out of
Latin. His Holiness did not see fit to reply.

Chuck Lowry
Brooklyn, NY




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