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  • From: Doug Brown <wply1223 AT gmail.com>
  • To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion / Chapter 1 - Chapter 2, Section 5
  • Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 20:05:45 -0400

Hi everybody,

 

First, thank you to Rhonda for kicking things off. You are always an insightful commenter on Percy, and your thoughts and questions to get us going are excellent. I just want to share a few of my initial responses here, some of which touch on your questions and some of the comments of other people.

 

1.       A fresh reading. I jokingly mentioned when I said I wanted to be part of the reading this summer that The Last Gentleman is my least favorite Percy novel, but that it still ranks high since Percy is my favorite author. I decided to come at this reading with an open mind, putting aside my previous critical opinions. And I am loving it. I am deeply surprised how much I am enjoying this reading so far.

 

2.       “A telescope of unusual design.” On the first page, I was struck by the phrase “a telescope of unusual design.” It seems to me that that phrase – and the subsequent descriptions of how Will uses the telescope – perfectly describes Percy’s novels. They allow us to see things afresh. Objects, assumptions, histories, experiences that have been emptied out by our lives and our times can suddenly be seen again because of the way Percy presents them to us.

 

3.       All the telling. The telling can be a bit much for me. Rhonda mentioned that the interactions with Dr. Gamow were among her favorites, and I can appreciate that perspective. But I found the early dense detailing of Will’s oddness a bit exhausting. The writing is good enough to pull me along, but I could do without some of the vaguely false scenarios where Will mirrors therapists and campers and Ohioans. Things really kick into gear when Will goes to the hospital and meets the Vaughts. One of Elmore Leonard’s rules of writing is to leave out the parts that people skim.

 

4.       “It was German.” I find lots of Percy’s writing to be funny – or just plain fun. I think in earlier readings I missed how funny The Last Gentleman is. There are great lines dropped in that make me actually chuckle, I mean audible chuckle.

 

5.       The dialogue. Another Elmore Leonard rule (and practice) is to make your dialogue sing while also sounding authentic. Such a hard balance – and Percy excels at this art. His dialogue shows you tons about the characters while also sounding like real people while also feeling like poetry. Amazing.

 

6.       “She was his better half.” A BIT OF A SPOILER HERE. If you have not read this book before and don’t want any hints about how things turn out for Will, you may want to skip this comment. ... ... ... ... In The Second Coming, which is my favorite Percy novel, there are two main characters, dual protagonists, a man and a woman, who alternate chapters and eventually come together to complete each other. One of those characters is Will Barrett. How odd that Will says something to that effect on first seeing Kitty.

 

7.       Kitty and Kate, Will and Binx. I think it was Janet who observed some similarities between Kitty and Kate. I can definitely see that. But I also see that maybe there is a reversal. At the end of The Moviegoer, Kate asks Binx to tell her what to do and she’ll do it. If I’m not remembering wrongly, I think she even wants Binx to tell her what bus to take and where to get off. In this early section of The Last Gentleman, Will asks the same thing of Kitty on the subway. Huh. Not sure what to make of that.

 

Sorry… Too much? Ha! I’m just pleased by how much I am enjoying this book again.

 

Thanks, y’all,

Doug Brown

Asheville, NC


On Mon, Jun 16, 2025 at 4:35 PM Percy-L Listserv Manager <percy.listserv.manager AT gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, Leonard, for your terrific post! I am forwarding it through the listserv again to note that your responses to Rhonda's questions are in bold in case that is not clear. 

Group members may wish to place a paragraph return or two after a question they respond to in order to set off their replies. Alternatively, you can use colored text. None of us wishes to miss out on anyone's valuable insightsOf course, it is perfectly acceptable to respond to responses using these same conventions. Most of all, have fun!

Happy reading,
Henry M.
Percy-L Listserv Manager


On Mon, 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

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
  1. 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. 
  2. 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."!!!!)
  3. 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)
  1. 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!)
  2. 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?
  3. 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.
  4. 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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