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

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  • From: RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>
  • To: "percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc: "percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] From Leonard Hughes
  • Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 03:15:12 +0000

Thanks for your insights Leonard! I, for one, enjoyed you bringing in Love in
the Ruins. (It seems to me that was our first slow read. Is that right Henry?
When was that? I seem to remember being in Texas, which would have made it
2014? It couldn’t have been that long ago though!) You’re right Leonard—Percy
is pretty tough on old Gamow. He hits Dr Duk hard, too, in Second Coming.

Your pop culture notes are helpful! It’s easy to forget the sensibility that
existed some 60 years ago. And Will, being who he is, can only have a mimicry
of romance, right? Hold his certain someone’s charms in his arms, etc.

I think this is Percy’s funniest book, and I appreciated that highlight!

Rhonda
Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 16, 2025, at 3:49 PM, Leonard <leonardh6363 AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion / Chapter 1 - Chapter 2, Section 5
> Inbox
> Search for all messages with label Inbox
> Remove label Inbox from this conversation
> RHONDA MCDONNELL rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com via
> <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en> lists.ibiblio.org
> Jun 13, 2025, 6:04 PM (3 days ago)
> to Percy-L:
> This post covers this week's reading of Chapter 1 - Chapter 2, Section 5.
> Chapter One, *The Last Gentleman*
> Hello to the list, and welcome to our summer slow-read discussion. I have
> some thoughts and questions below. As you read *LG*, please chime in with
> your thoughts, questions, and answers to the questions of others. Think of
> it as a virtual book club, where we come together as readers and respond as
> such. For my part, I'm wiping all academic considerations from my mind, and
> I'm reading this very fine novel for pleasure alone. For your part, you are
> welcome to approach the novel in any way you'd like, and to share that with
> the rest of us.
> I wanted to come to *LG* fresh, and so I tried to wipe my memory of what I
> already know is to come in the novel and of what comes later for Will in
> *The
> Second Coming*. One thing that is helping me do that is I’m reading it on
> Kindle. This is facilitated by the fact that, once again, all my physical
> books are packed away in anticipation of a move later this summer. Not
> having all my previous notes and underlined passages helps me to read it
> like it’s the first time, although I’m a bit put off by everyone else’s
> underlined passages. I’ll have to see if I can turn that off. Anyway, here
> are some initial points/questions that I’m hoping might prompt some
> discussion. Please throw your own into the hopper as well!
> *Before reading:*
>
> 1. I’m wondering if anyone else had the same goal – to come at the novel
> fresh – or if it’s the pleasure of returning to the book again that is
> working for you this time? *I'm coming to it "fresh." I've read it
> several times through the years, but my brain works like Will
> Barrett's...I
> can't remember what I did **yesterday.*
>
> *Chapter 1*
>
> 2. I’m struck in this first chapter by the presence of the narrative
> voice. It’s so assertively 1950-60s era and male to me, though the
> narrator
> is not in any way identified. But still, that narrator is a character,
> don’t you think? And I’m wondering, do I take the narrator as the
> voice-over in a film? As a psychiatrist making patient notes? As a sort of
> newscaster reporting on Will’s activities? Does the narrative voice assert
> itself that way for you? Or is it just the simple means of getting to the
> story? *I never thought of the narrator as a character, since there's no
> interaction with the people introduced in the book. The voice has the
> advantage of understanding beyond Will's and others', but I don't believe
> it's the stuff of psychiatry. I see him (I think of the voice as male) as
> an existentialist, who describes Will's thoughts and experiences in terms
> that Binx Bolling would recognize and understand better than Will himself.
> (The narrator is apparently a fan of Kierkegaard--or at least, of Percy's
> nonfiction.) The psychiatrist in the book--Dr. Gamow-- is lampooned,
> unable
> to deal with Will's alienation by analyzing imaginary Freudian slips. *
> 3. Will feels surprisingly current to me – this was my biggest shock
> upon returning to this novel. I used to feel that in some ways it was the
> most dated of Percy’s fiction. But perhaps because history has begun to
> rhyme a bit, LG pulls back into the moment for me. Will seems like so many
> of today’s young people, floating along and performing under his
> potential.
> He doesn’t have a strong identity or reliable social skills, and he is
> beset by fugues and anxieties. He could be the case study or subject of so
> many articles I read today about young people who have a failure to
> launch,
> so to speak. But before I wander into musing about today’s culture and
> today’s young people and what might be occurring within my own time, let
> me
> come back to the novel itself. In this re-read (or first read even), where
> does this novel seem to fall on the dated vs timeless scale? While the
> social satire hasn’t yet begun, it’s coming, and it draws upon Percy’s
> time
> period, as Dante did in *The Inferno*. Dante, of course, shook free from
> being dated and achieved timelessness. Can a novel like this – and Percy
> in
> general – do the same? *It seems timeless to me. I agree that today's
> young people seem to have that "failure to launch." Will's troubles, I
> believe, are universal (in varying degrees, of course). There are
> instances
> that may be dated in today's more-sensitive culture. The first time Will
> is
> alone with Kitty, he kisses her on the mouth--a liberty allowed to every
> hero in '60s TV, but seems a bit awkward now, especially since Kitty
> registers no negative reaction. Still, I relate to Will's ills today as
> much as I did when I first read about them, and I still laugh out loud,
> thanks to Percy's fantastic sense of humor ("Try as he might, he could not
> bring himself to speak to the cat."!!!!)*
> 4. My favorite interaction in this first chapter is between Will and Dr.
> Gamow. There’s so much about it that strikes me as funny, such as the
> narrator’s description of Gamow’s eventual disenchantment with Will
> because
> Will is so *good* at being a patient without actually addressing his
> problems or, as they say regarding therapy and groups, doing the work. I
> can’t help but speculate on how much of Percy’s own life in New York and
> visits to Janet Rioch, his therapist, is woven into this dynamic. An
> interviewer once described Percy as an adept “dancer,” which I remembered
> when reading the description of Will as one in Gamow’s estimation. I’d
> look
> up the interview, but, as I said, my books are all packed. Maybe someone
> else knows? Percy once considered being a psychiatrist, but here he seems
> to be saying something about therapy, psychologists, and maybe especially
> patients. What do you think? *I think Percy throughout his career
> consistently presented psychology as inadequate to deal with existential
> realities. He's much kinder to the psychiatrist hero in his next novel, as
> Dr. More is able to get beyond psychology better than poor old Dr. Gamow,
> with help from his lapsometer. *
>
> *Chapter 2 (through section 5)*
>
> 5. I couldn’t help but think of how 2025 students would react to Will’s
> pivot from birdwatching to people watching through his telescope. Is he a
> voyeur, a peeping Tom, or does he have some other reason for his
> actions? *That
> telescope breaks him out of his difficulty to get beyond the cloud of
> everydayness. (I think there are similarities to Dr. More's instrument in
> "Love in the Ruins"--sorry to keep jumping ahead!)*
> 6. His integration into the Vaught clan—does that work for you? Poppy
> Vaught has some memory of Will’s father and uncle, and Will is a great
> social mimic (not to mention, he is returning to himself through this
> mimicry). But how suspicious is it that he shows up every day to visit? If
> I were the Vaughts, I’d wonder what he was up to. *It's an old-style
> Southern hospitality to some degree. Right?*
> 7. As a follow-up, there’s a reaction to his father that he is picking
> up on but doesn’t understand. I remember enough to know what is being
> foreshadowed, but if I look at it from my clean slate perspective, I
> wonder
> if there’s a tension in the Vaught clan regarding Will. Poppy is very team
> Will, but the older women seem far more reticent—particularly Rita.
> *Rita's
> no fun.*
> 8. Is it romantic, the way Will skulks around after Kitty and then
> confesses over-the-top feelings for her, or is it creepy? Or is it just
> that Rita is right—he’s very ill? *It's a bit strange, even in the '60s.
> But I had a coincidental experience last night at the end of a midcentury
> episode of "77 Sunset Strip." Roger Smith engaged help with his case from
> an attractive, and very all-business psychiatrist. After solving the case
> he shocked her by planting a snog on the lips, which melted her cool
> facade. Helped to put Will Barrett's action in a different context.*
>
> I can't wait to see what everyone else is thinking! All the best to all of
> you!
> *...and the best to you, Rhonda. Loved your comments!*
>
> *--Leonard*
>
> Rhonda McDonnell
> Member of the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism
> Texas Tech University
>
> *"You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of
> great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea
> of who he is or what he is doing." ~Walker Percy~*
>
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