Walker Percy

[Thomas Gollier <tgollier AT gmail.com>]

Dr. More catches up with the sniper, coming up behind him, carbine in hand, without him knowing he's there. The question is whether to shoot him or not. There is the reference to St. Aquinas and his notion of self-defense seen in
terms of pure intentions and the response being proportional to the threat, but Tom boils this down to whether he should "shoot him in the back." Granted that someone not facing you or knowing you are there is not an immediate threat, but the sniper has been shooting at him previously, presumably trying to kill him, and/or the girls … The hesitation, itself, is enough. There is no such hesitation on Lola's part when it comes upon Ely guarding Dr. More later, and Victor says as much when he gets the drop on Tom, that he knew he would not shoot him.

Victor is an interesting topic in his own right. He tells Dr. More: "Doc, you shouldn't ought to of done this." And, Tom replies: "Well, I didn't," apparently in the sense that he didn't shoot Uru. But then Victor says: ""Doc Doc Doc. You sho done gone and done it this time?" and here Doc simply replies: "Yes." If he had shot Uru he would have been irrevocably be pulled into the milieu on the side of the whites. And, whatever his. angelic motivations for saving the world
and/or getting the Nobel prize, Tom refuses to take sides in any of these conflicts. Victor, being born and raised in a hostile reality, has a similar desire. However, where Tom is confused and backing away from things that don't seem
right, Victor has a pretty clear, if tacit, notion of his orientation. His goal is to navigate the reality that manifests itself, be what it may, for the benefit of himself and those he knows. He pursue this goal with Dr. More and Uru. First, he leaves the carbine hidden. Then, he weaves a story about the Doc looking for something to drink. And when Uru, the Michigan outsider, orders Victor to "take care of him," Victor protests, recounting how long he has known him. Finally, he gives them both a way out. The whole sniper business was to get Tom out of his house and take possession of the antenna. These have both been accomplished, and there is no need to kill him now.

Taken prisoner and then escaping, Tom continues his detached air of letting things sort themselves out for themselves; namely, the three women and their place in his life as well as different opportunities to throw in with one side or another. He also lets the Lapsometer go its way, the sulphur catastrophe take its course, and his theory operate as it will in the Love Clinic. But I'd like to thank Leonard for bringing up Percy's essay "Notes for a Novel about the End of the World." I hadn't put these two together before, but the essay seems clearly directed at this novel, and it certainly makes sense of Percy's dedication of it to Shelby Foote, his his life-long partner in figuring out just what they, as writers, should be doing.

The contrast between Dr. More and Victor seems to reveal "the need of recovering oneself as neither angel nor organism but as a wayfaring creature somewhere between," as Percy put it in the essay. Given the surreal reality in
which we find ourselves – and with Southern literature reality is always surreal – "the point is [not] to change it" worldwide – that happens all the time on its own – but to navigate it locally, by hook or by crook, for the benefit of ourselves and others. Victor has this orientation as a fundamental way of being. Doc is working his way, backwards perhaps but, towards it.

Another topic, then, might be: Is Percy conveying the "good news" of Christianity without any of its institutional failures or worn-out terminology sapping the life out of his message?

Again, I have to say, this discussion has really brought out a new appreciation of this novel for me.

Thanks,
Tom