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

["Steve Dye" <sldye AT bluegrass.org>]

I also went looking for Percy's gravesite in Covington a few years ago and
there is still little trace of him there...his grave is just a flat marker
in the cemetary behind the Abbey there along with the other priests...
----- Original Message -----
From: <chaslow53 AT aol.com>
To: ""Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion""
<percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 1:48 PM
Subject: RE: [percy-l] New reader


> I have very much enjoyed the activity on this list in the past several
days.  Let me add just a few things, none of them original:
>
> * WP did say that "lack of place" was one of the great things about
Covington.  "...lack of identity, lack of placeness, even lack of history."
In Covington, "I didn't know anybody, had no kin."  He subsequently said, as
I recall, that one of the things he enjoyed most about the town was that he
was less well known than the local Budweiser distributor.
>
> * He left New Orleans for Covington in part because of the debilitating
effect of NO on the author's productivity.  "The occupational hazard of the
writer in New Orleans is a variety of the French flu, which might be called
the Vieux Carre syndrome."  Faulkner, he said, was "charmed to a standstill"
by NO.
>
> * When I was in graduate school at the University of Cincinnati, I was
such a Thomas Wolfe fan (even though, or perhaps especially because, I was
not an English major) that I drove all night to get to Ashville to try to
find his grave (found it) and his mother's boarding house (never did).
>
> * I was prevented from embarrassing myself by writing a letter to WP by
virtue of my ignorance.  I had honestly never heard of him by the time of
his death.  In fact, I never read a word until about three years ago. I
interviewed an applicant for the job of departmental assistant.  This was
her first job, and she was an English major.  Well, there's not much to ask
folks in a first job interview, so, because she was an English major, I
asked her who her favorite author was.  She told me that it was Walker
Percy, and I just on a whim a few days later picked up The Moviegoer.  Wow,
what a revelation.
>
> * Although WP was spared, I did have my "here's a letter for a famous
person" phase.  I wrote an indignant and bombastic letter to Pope Paul VI to
express my utter horror at the thought that he would CONSIDER taking the
Mass out of Latin.  His Holiness did not see fit to reply.
>
> Chuck Lowry
> Brooklyn, NY
> --
>
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