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

["Gray, Rich" <RGray AT montreat.edu>]

I am not persuaded that any non-Arab understands jihadists.  Maybe no Arabs understand them either.  But Arabs will probably be first to figure them out.

 

Percy’s Lancelot Lamar is a terrorist, mentally unbalanced, disappointed in life, and holding to a rationalized ideology that permits him to divide the whole culture into sheep and goats, with himself as god.  Like jihadists, his killing has little or no correction on the social misbehavior he deplores.  Like jihadists, Lance expected to die in his executing explosion of his home, Belle Isle.  Ranting is Lance’s lingo:

 

“I cannot tolerate this age.  And I will not.  I might have tolerated you and your Catholic Church, and even joined it, if you had remained true to yourself.  Now you’re part of the age.  You’ve the same fleas as the dogs you’ve lain down with.  I would have felt at home at Mont-Saint-Michel [loads of irony here], the Mount of the Archangel [?] with the flaming sword, or with Richard Coeur de Lion at Acre [more irony].  They believed in a god who said he came not to bring peace but the sword.  Make love not war?  I’ll take war rather than what this age calls love.” (pp. 157-8)

 

Rich Gray

 

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

C.S. Lewis

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From: RHONDA MCDONNELL [mailto:rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 11:37 PM
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Believers...

 

So what do you all think Percy might make of the jihadists? I've been wondering that lately, in light of his thoughts regarding Nazi Germany and the "tenderness leads to terror" concept that he and Flannery O'Connor shared. We can't accuse the jihadists of falling prey to scientific humanism, that's for sure. But what to make of their sort of belief? It seems to me to be as abstracted as any -ism out there, but I'm looking from the outside. Anyone with insight?

--Rhonda

"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance"
 
                                    e.e. cummings

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From: <Robert_Pauley AT oxy.com>
Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
To: <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Believers...
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:25:39 -0800

Rhonda: I was drawn in to a running conversation about God with a group of men. The sort of conversation which, to quite Percy, "give me a neckache." This passage came to me, vaguely, but with a memory of pungent satisfaction. (Percy's ruminations on faith are always on the edges of my consciousness, I guess). I remembered how Percy managed to displease everybody and yet get at the old dilemma of faith in a fresh way. I, too, wanted to displease and provoke. I also thought it was a good opportunity to introduce Percy to a bunch of young people.

regards, R

 

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From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 4:09 PM
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Believers...

Just for curiousity's sake, what are you using the passage for?

--Rhonda

"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance"
 
                                    e.e. cummings

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From: <Robert_Pauley AT oxy.com>
Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
To: <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Believers...
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:55:08 -0800

Found it referred to in an essay by Kent Gramm. From The Second Coming. Of course it is much longer than this. Thank you.

 

Excerpts:

There are only two classes of people, the believers and the unbelievers. The only difficulty is deciding which is the more feckless.

… As unacceptable as believers are, unbelievers are even worse.

… The present day unbeliever is crazy because he finds himself born into a world of endless wonders, having no notion how he got here, a world in which he eats, sleeps … works, grows old, gets sick, and dies, and… Not once in his entire life does it cross his mind to say to himself that his situation is preposterous…

… The more intelligent he is, the crazier he is… He is as insane as a French intellectual.

 

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From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RobtSchaefer AT aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 3:33 PM
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Believers...

"To people! To unbelievers and to so-called believers." ...

 

Fr. Smith is talking to Tom More about how words have been deprived of their meaning. 

 

The Thanatos Syndrome, Section II, part 6 (or chapter 6)

 

R. Schaefer

Mobile

 

 

 

 

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