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

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

Michael wrote: 
Lance speaks for Will Percy and the loss of southern stoicism. But he also 
speaks for Walker.
 
With Lance Lamar in Lancelot speaking for frustrated, worried Catholics or 
even a Protestant like me, does that mean a ranting dreamer of judgement 
crouches in us too?  When decadence rubs against me, I often ask myself, 
"Will God's anger crash down now?"  
 
Then I think "I'm among the righteous remnant.  The world may say 'I've got 
no strings to hold me down,' yet I'm listening to Jiminy Cricket.  My 
conscience will be my guide."  
 
How can one be against the world without wishing to be a terrorist--maybe 
just for one day?
 
Rich Gray

        -----Original Message----- 
        From: Michael Larson 
        Sent: Tue 1/2/2007 10:59 PM 
        
        

        I don't know about anyone else on the list, but Rhonda's posts did 
some funky formatting on my computer, such that I could not read them in 
email. Once I copied and pasted into a Word document, though, I saw that she 
had some great things to say. I think it is correct that Lance speaks for 
Will Percy and the loss of southern stoicism. But he also speaks for Walker. 
In fact, the changes in the Church are not unlike the changes in the social 
order. The changes in both are, in many ways, the kindred products of 
modernity. Lance affords Percy an opportunity to speak (yes, in an amped-up 
fashion) for both Will and Walker, each bemoaning the loss of something he 
perceives to be of the utmost importance.

        It seems to me that Lance, as a fictional character, might have been 
the only way that Percy could express such anxiety. He certainly wasn't about 
to go public straight-up with a disillusioned characterization of the Church. 
So he did it in fiction, and Lancelot isn't the only place, though it is 
perhaps the edgiest. As Rhonda says, Percy did not despair ultimately: he 
hoped; but that hope was in spite of a world gone mad and a church gone 
soft--not BECAUSE of either one of them.

        As far as the jihadists go, yes, they are believers. And yes, there 
are Catholic believers and Protestant believers, and many other kinds of 
believers, but it is only the trait of belief that binds each to each. It is 
not the content of their belief. They do not believe in the same things. Of 
course there is overlap, but there are mutually exclusive differences as 
well. Unless religious relativism is true, they simply cannot all be correct. 
So in being willing at the end of the novel to listen to Fr. John, Lance 
teaches us a lesson ONLY if Fr. John's version of the truth is the Truth. 
Clearly this is what Percy is intimating. If the Catholic truth that Fr. John 
represents is replacable by any (fill in the blank) serious-minded religious 
figure, then Percy is handing us nothing but relativism. Which he isn't.

        As Rhonda says, Percy does indeed speak through Fr. John. That's the 
beauty of fiction: authorial voice may enter any number of characters at 
strategic moments, even those (the priest and Lance) who represent ambivalent 
and dichotomous grapplings with the same reality (the Church).


        Regarding Rhonda's other post--a "bad peace" might be one that is 
based on egalitarianism, indifference, apathy, rather than on truth, true 
charity, and an acclimation to the real reality (i.e. God's).

        Regards, 
        Michael Larson

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