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

[marcus AT loyno.edu]

This is an interesting and useful discussion and I don't want to rain on
the parade.  But how often does Percy's fiction contain "someone finding
himself"?  Aren't his protagonists more often caught up in stumbling from
illusion to painful insight?  I think the K'aard connection and marcel's
"intersubjectivity" are there as theoretical templates, but is this theory
in any way verified in the fiction?  Aren't matters energized on the
negative side, the specter of the nihilistic, and yet remain tentative on
the positive side?  I think Percy was too honest to try to fake it.

My wet Isidorian comment.

Marcus


>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                 
>               
>
>
>--
>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>.
>