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

[Nikkibar AT aol.com]

Dear Rhonda,

The Civil War magnum opus is somewhat daunting and certainly time consuming. On the other hand if you're interested in the Civil War it is the definitive work on the subject at least for our generation. More to the point so far as filling in the points of interest that one might have if you approach Foote mainly from the direction of Percy, I would suggest you sneak up on the Civil War by reading the Foote novel canon, starting with Follow Me Down and then deciding where to go from there, ending with September September.

Bear in mind when pursuing this course that Walker and Shelby both were youthful builders of model airplanes. Walker built the balsa and tissue paper type which we are told  flew like crazy and were meant to fly but his planes had a certain rag tag appearance. Shelby built the other type which came in shaped chunks of wood that you glued together and sanded down endlessly, painted with dope and glued on the window labels -- and then hung from a light fixture in the bedroom. They looked great but would not fly nor were they meant to. Biographers and critics have remarked that the same sort of thing tends to happen in their respective novels. I leave it to you to see if you agree.

Nikki