Walker Percy

[Leonard Hughes <leonardh6363 AT gmail.com>]

Thank you, Tom, and the beloved Percyphyles…can’t believe we’re nearing the end.

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 ….

Referring to an earlier discussion in the Slow Read, Percy once again proves his relevance to today’s world in “Love in the Ruins,” considering the recent controversy surrounding ICE shootings, in Minnesota, and more recently in Texas. Arguments about self-defense continue to appear on front pages, reminiscent of Tom More’s dilemma, though St. Aquinas is never mentioned by name in the news stories.

Victor is an interesting topic in his own 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. …

Tom, your reading of Victor is perceptive, and it makes me think of Huck Finn’s companion Jim, who also has a “clear notion of his orientation.” He guides and protects Huck through the boy’s trials and adventures, helping him and sometimes manipulating him, always with an eye toward escaping and reuniting with his family. There are other allusions to Twain’s work, including similarities in Tom’s whole adventure—the escape from pursuers, the Duke and King-like exploitation by Art, the dark humor, etc. Percy has credited Twain as one of his rare American influences.

Taken prisoner and then escaping, Tom continues his detached air of letting things sort themselves out for themselves; namely, the three women ….

Tom’s letting the women “sort themselves out” is a clever way also to avoid descending into pornography, which Percy does often bringing main characters to the brink, then having them break out in hives., etc. The Love Clinic is pretty racy, but mitigated by the clinical atmosphere and the humor. It’s tempting to discuss the issue of sexism in Percy’s treatment of women here, but we’ve well covered “political correctness,” and as Percy would remind us, the novel is a comedy. (I think the suggestion that Tom is looking forward to re-populating the world with three women comes directly from one of Percy’s favorite movies, “Dr. Strangelove.”)

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, …

Thanks, Tom, for the shout-out. As I said, I found the essay hard for me to follow completely. Published a couple years before the novel, one thing I got from it was the idea that a novelist forecasting a future shouldn’t concentrate on an end-time disaster, like so many sci-fi books and movies. Political divisions, racial strife, nuclear build-ups are less threatening than deeper perturbations of the soul. That explains why Tom observes no profound difference between Knotheads and Leftpappas, and what’s behind his dismissal of racial causes in his debate with Uru (though at the beginning he admits the sin of slavery might have been the country’s downfall).

My sense of “Love” is that the threat Percy’s dramatizing are the existential failures he addresses in his nonfiction and other novels: ennui, alienation, homelessness, despair. His treatment differs from his earlier works by objectifying these things as something a psychiatrist can’t really distinguish from recognized disorders like bipolarism. So he has Tom create a lapsometer that not only diagnoses these disorders, but has the potential to treat them. His clashes with other doctors illustrate that psychiatry and medical science can’t recognize something that is made worse by its unawareness. The potential popular appeal of the novel is that a reader doesn’t have to have encountered Kierkegaard or Sartre to engage in a good yarn that dramatizes deeper concerns.  

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.

A provocative way of putting 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?

The religious “message” survives. As with Binx, it’s not for Dr. More to say whether or not God is at the basis of the threat, but there are enough hints…he even introduces the Devil as the main antagonist.  

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

Me too, and thanks to both Toms.

Thank you all,
Leonard

 

On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 4:30 PM honeyjbc1 <honeyjbc AT gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks, Thomas, I will comment as I go.

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."

Thomas, Thanks for the info on St. Aquinas.  

 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.

Good observations, all.

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 pursues 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.

Ditto above.
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.

As I commented earlier, Foote's fourth book was dedicated to Percy. This, Percy's fourth novel was dedicated to Foote.

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?

I will be covering the last part of the Slow Read. Maybe some answers will be there.
Again, I have to say, this discussion has really brought out a new appreciation of this novel for me.

Thanks,
Tom

Thanks, Tom. I would like to add a couple of observations:

Tom's dilemma? He loves all three. Tom's solution? He must live with all three. Ha!

Tom's knowledge of the plans of the building help him to escape. Hilarious. And when he sets up the music. So funny. "May your days be merry and bright..."

When Tom escapes he is "ejected into the hot bright perilous world." Beautiful writing.

Lola, "Oh, Tommy I was so worried about you. Tom, "Keep worrying."

So many funny things in the next few pages. Almost a comedy movie. From the comings and goings to get a cello or clothes, to the protestors who use non violent violence in the service of non violence, to the sex with substitute partners where Tom must lift the cello over the active sex couples, which he had the "devil's" own time getting over them, and, reminiscent of Tom Lehrer's National Brotherhood Week, the end of page 342.

While Tom is musing that he wants all three girls, he asks Ellen not to leave without telling him.

Again, the goofy fun house stuff going on with Tom trying to keep all the plates in the air like that guy on Ed Sullivan. Only fifty pages to go. How will Percy wrap everything up in just that few pages?

Next Friday we shall see.

Janet Cantor

On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 1:27 PM honeyjbc1 <honeyjbc AT gmail.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Thomas Gollier <tgollier AT gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 12:32 PM
Subject: [percy-l] The Second July 4, from Chapter 9-18
To: Percy List <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>

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

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