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

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Re: Reading list in order...

From: "christopher boss" <christopherboss AT hotmail.com>
To: percy-l AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Re: Reading list in order...
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 09:11:57 -0400

david,

i'm so curious to hear more about your grad work. from what i've read of your posts, it sounds as if we've be travelling parallel roads in our thoughts on percy. i wrote my master's thesis on percy, specifically on the importance of secondary characters to tom and will's quests--i used marcel's notion of "intersubjectivity" extensively throughout my argument. i essentially argued that the secondary characters were the means by which tom and will discovered "authentic" living.

love to hear more of your thoughts.

chris boss

From: David Alan Beck <dabeck AT iupui.edu>
Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: [percy-l] Re: Reading list in order...
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 17:41:57 -0500 (EST)

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>.

<html><DIV><FONT face="Garamond, Times, Serif">Christopher R. Boss</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Garamond>Lecturer</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Garamond>Western Carolina University</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Garamond>Cullowhee, NC  28723</FONT></DIV></html>

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Re: Reading list in order..., Bryon McLaughlin, 09/24/2002
- Re: Reading list in order..., David Alan Beck, 09/24/2002
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
- Re: Reading list in order..., christopher boss, 09/25/2002
  - Re: Reading list in order..., David Alan Beck, 09/26/2002
- Re: Reading list in order..., Bryon McLaughlin, 09/25/2002
  - Re: Reading list in order..., David Alan Beck, 09/26/2002
- Re: Reading list in order..., marcus, 09/26/2002
  - Re: Reading list in order..., David Alan Beck, 09/26/2002
    - Re: Reading list in order..., James Piat, 09/26/2002
  - Re: Reading list in order..., Allen Pridgen, 09/27/2002