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

["Henry P. Mills" <wpercy2 AT ibiblio.org>]

Title: Percy and Palahniuk (forwarded for Gregory  Plemmons)

> From: "Plemmons, Gregory" <gregory.plemmons AT Vanderbilt.Edu>
> Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:23:24 -0600
> To: <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Percy and Palahniuk
>
>
>
> I seem to remember a thread on this list a few years ago on Percy and the movie Fight Club which I've still yet to see. But I just finished the author's latest book Choke (Chuck Palahniuk). The narrator frequently visits his deranged mother in the psych ward, and I found some of her rantings to be remarkably similar to Percy's protagonists: 
>
> "...People had been working for years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become...Nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy. On a roller coaster. At a movie. Still, it would always be that kind of faux excitement...And because there's no possibility of real disaster, real risk, we're left with no chance for real salvation..."
>
> "...Attention please, would Dr. Freud please pick up the white courtesy telephone. A world of symbols, not the real world."
>
> Has anybody else noted Percy's influence or read anything about Palahniuk? Interestingly, the narrator in Choke also dropped out of medical school after the first year. Just wondering on this Good Friday (which just happens to land on Flannery O'Connor's birthday). 
>
>
> Gregory Plemmons 
> Nashville, TN

--- Begin Message ---

• From: "Plemmons, Gregory" <gregory.plemmons AT Vanderbilt.Edu>
• To: <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
• Subject: Percy and Palahniuk
• Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:23:24 -0600

Title: Percy and Palahniuk

I seem to remember a thread on this list a few years ago on Percy and the movie Fight Club which I've still yet to see. But I just finished the author's latest book Choke (Chuck Palahniuk). The narrator frequently visits his deranged mother in the psych ward, and I found some of her rantings to be remarkably similar to Percy's protagonists:

"...People had been working for years to make the world a safe, organized place. Nobody realized how boring it would become...Nobody had left much room for adventure, except maybe the kind you could buy. On a roller coaster. At a movie. Still, it would always be that kind of faux excitement...And because there's no possibility of real disaster, real risk, we're left with no chance for real salvation..."

"...Attention please, would Dr. Freud please pick up the white courtesy telephone. A world of symbols, not the real world."

Has anybody else noted Percy's influence or read anything about Palahniuk? Interestingly, the narrator in Choke also dropped out of medical school after the first year. Just wondering on this Good Friday (which just happens to land on Flannery O'Connor's birthday).

Gregory Plemmons
Nashville, TN

--- End Message ---