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

[<Robert_Pauley AT oxy.com>]

When I posited this idea I was thinking more about the list of annoying pop 
culture figures I've heard fatuously praise Percy (Bruce Springsteen, Mary 
Chapin Carpenter, Moby) than serious literary critics, who no one reads 
anyway. Percy as a darling of rich and rather sanctimonious left-leaning 
artists is kind of amusing. But I agree with Julio. What's interesting though 
is how many people who gush over Percy also, it would appear at least from 
the transcripts of their enthusiasm, get him wrong or inadequately. It is one 
thing to put down a Percy book before finishing it or dismiss him once you're 
done with it for the reasons of existential discomfort Julio cites, but it is 
another to embrace him passionately and still miss the point. An addition to 
the examples above would be Robert Coles. Percy, I believe, at one point, 
expressed a certain mild bewilderment at Coles' failure to grasp what he was 
about. I believe he once said (in his correspondence with Foote) something to 
the effect that Coles never understood his occasional impulse to tie a 
weighted bucket around his neck and throw himself into the bayou creek behind 
his house. But maybe somehow this paradox of interpretation is bound up in 
the paradox of expression. Percy's paradox, e.g., the "upside-downness" of 
modern life, feeling bad in so-called good environments, the assault of the 
"ravenous particles" of everydayness (as in Will Barrett's "seizure" at the 
Museum and Sutter Vaught's post-coital suicide attempt in the motel room), 
the deaths-head of despair that attends family holiday celebrations (the 
"Norman Rockwell paradox") and all the other many permutations of this idea 
may be hard to get. A lot of the people I've heard praising Percy talk more 
about his "humanism" than the dark involutions and ironies that lead him 
there, or to his splendid skewering of both the "good liberal life" with its 
zeal of compassion and good intentions as well as the country-club Republican 
life with its empty zeal of golf-course banter and GE Medallion homes. 

It's not as if the critiques I read are malicious or grossly wrong. They 
simply seem to miss a hemisphere of Percy's world. So be it. I am reminded of 
a moment in Jean Renoir's film "Grand Illusion" when the German commandant 
overhears a pseudo-intellectual prisoner express excited analytical praise 
for Pindar. The commandant shakes his head. "Poor Pindar," he mutters, and 
walks on. But Pindar will survive and so will Percy.

(Of course, perhaps they would say I'm the one getting him wrong)
-----Original Message-----
From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of J Rivas-Pita
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 11:16 AM
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Kramer's new book


Let me venture a possible answer.
Percy is "gotten wrong" by people who'd rather get him wrong than
having to realize that they lead a wrong life -an unaunthentic life.
In kirkergaardian terms, familiar to most on this list, when you
realize that you lead a wrong life you have but two choices left:
repent and change (I'm not meaning those words in their
televangelistic meaning of course) or make a decision to go the wrong
way fully aware, taking responsability for your choice.
Much more comfortable to get Percy (or life) wrong...

Regards,
Julio

On 6/25/05, Bryon McLaughlin <BMclaughlin AT nazarene.org> wrote:
> If Percy is often "gotten wrong," can someone on the list explain what 
> areas is often gotten wrong, and possibly more importantly, WHY?  Why is he 
> gotten wrong?  Is it that he is hard to understand, that he was at time 
> cryptic?  Why?  Thanks.
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Robert_Pauley AT oxy.com
> Sent: Fri 6/24/2005 5:26 PM
> To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: RE: [percy-l] Kramer's new book
> 
> 
> "However, to me he gets Percy quite wrong."
> 
> Everybody does. Percy is the most "gotten wrong" writer in American 
> letters. With the exception of this fine list, of course.
> 
>         -----Original Message-----
>         From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
> [mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Robert Eckert
>         Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 8:01 AM
>         To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
>         Subject: [percy-l] Kramer's new book
> 
> 
>         Dear List,
> 
>         Peter Kramer, the author of _Listening to Prozac_, recently 
> published _Against Depression_.
> 
>         The last chapter of _LP_ is "The Message in the Capsule" and deal 
> extensively with Percy. Kramer corresponded with Percy at some point.
> 
>         However, to me he gets Percy quite wrong.
> 
>         On p.265 of _AG_ Kramer writes:
> 
>         "...Percy's position blurs distinctions we might want to make. It 
> overstates the case only slightly to say that for Percy, there is no 
> difference between treating epilepsy and treating
>         alienation. Both are best approached via faith and revelation, not 
> technology."
> 
>         It amazes me that Kramer could have read Percy's nonfiction, which 
> he states he has (e-mail), and miss Percy's use of the Dyadic/Triadic 
> distinction, especially:
> 
>         "I can even visualize the hospital of the future in which the first 
> signs the patient sees in the corridor do not read INTERNAL MEDICINE, 
> SURGERY, OB-GYN, DERMATOLOGY, PSYCHIATRY UPSTAIRS, but rather two big signs 
> just inside the front door, one pointing left, one right (I won't say which 
> is which), but one reading DYADIC DISORDERS; the other, TRIADIC DISORDERS."
> 
>         To Percy, the distinction is so profound that he feels the very 
> architecture of the hospitals of the future could be based upon it!
> 
>         It is a shame that Kramer has broadly disseminated such a profound 
> and fundamental misreading of Percy's work.
> 
>         Robert Eckert
>         Rochester, New York
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> 
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> 
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> 


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Sé feliz! (P. Benito Ballesteros, OSB, 1924-1996)
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