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percy-l - Re: [percy-l] weatherbee

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

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  • From: JHForest AT cs.com
  • To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] weatherbee
  • Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 04:02:42 EDT

Re Allen's book on Walker Percy, here's a very postive colmment about it that
I found on the Amazon.com site:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1575910403/qid=1144828789/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-4441318-5175843?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Jim Forest

>> All about Walker Percy, Literature, and The Human Condition, January 19, 2002

Reviewer: Sarah Williams (Bristol, VA USA) - See all my reviews

I came to this book for a good literary discussion, which I know Pridgen can produce in abundance. What I found is a sense of the connectedness of all things, a strong defense of the Percy premise that a self alone is ridiculous, and a better understanding of the relationship between the literary elements of author, text, critic, and reader. Pridgen's book Waker Percy's Sacramental Landscapes: the Search in the Desert is definitive on the subject of Walker Percy. I read or re-read the Percy novels and some of the Percy essays while reading Sacramental Landscapes for the first time. If you enjoyed The Last Gentleman but couldn't figure out the ending, or if you are still looking for words to connect the Will Barrett of that book to the Will Barrett in its sequel, search no more. Allen Pridgen has assembled the details of the character, along with the social, religious, ethical, and philosophical details of the novels. He gives the same fine analytical treatment to Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome. If you are a reader, you know that some books you forget and others you carry with you forever. What you may not know, and in a busy modern world may never take time to understand, is why this is so. Sacramental Landscapes is a discussion of the reason that Percy's books print themselves in your mind and become a part of you. If you have taken time to try to understand this reason, you are probably a writer. Or you might be a person with an advanced degree in philosophy, religion, or literature. I am none of these except perhaps a little of a writer. What draws me to the Pridgen analysis of Percy is my heritage in Christian fundamentalism, my enduring interest in Mary as envisioned by the Catholic church in doctrine, sacrament, and legend, and my native tendency to see any occurrence of beauty or meaning as a magical effect of the energetic source that we all forever seek. Sacramental Landscapes: the Search in the Desert is as compelling as its subject matter, which includes Walker Percy, Christian theology and tradition, and what it means to be human. With thorough scholarly attention to Percy, to the texts of Percy's books and essays, to the cultural and religious assumptions embedded in the works, and to previous critical comment, the book is also a clear revelation of the multifaceted nature of the literary experience for those who participate as readers, writers, critics, students, and teachers. <<

In a message dated 4/11/2006 8:51:15 PM Romance Daylight Time, rwarren AT boultcummings.com writes:

Subj: Re: [percy-l] weatherbee
Date:4/11/2006 8:51:15 PM Romance Daylight Time
From:rwarren AT boultcummings.com
Reply-to:percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
To:percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received from Internet:


I recommend Allen's excellent book to the list.  I have read most of the biographies and critical works on Percy's novels and this is one of the more helpful ones for me.  From other posts to this list, I know that many others continue to engage Walker for one of the reasons that has kept me returning to him over the years which is his insight into the struggle that so many of his characters have reconciling their faith to the "new modern world."  I read Allen's book a couple of years ago and was struck by his insight into the understanding of the world as a sacramental place in the Percy canon and his detailed readings of the novels.  It is good enough that I plan to read it again and it will send you back to the novels as well.
 
Richard
 
Richard F. Warren
 
Boult, Cummings, Conners &Berry, PLC
1600 Division Street, Suite 700
P.O. Box 340025
Nashville, Tennessee 37203
direct tel.: (615) 252-2337
direct fax: (615) 252-6337
Mobile tel: (615) 969-5327
e-mail:       rwarren AT boultcummings.com
 
From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Allen Pridgen
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 11:35 AM
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [percy-l] weatherbee

Fr. Weatherbee retires from the sacramental world to spend his time playing with toy trains, while more informed searchers like Father Smith are up in the firetower looking for signs (with his azimuth -- Arabic for "the way").
See my Walker Percy's Sacramental Landscapes (Susquehanna UP, 2000) for a new way of looking at Fr. Weatherbee (137-42).

Allen Pridgen


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