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

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  • From: "Gray, Rich" <RGray AT montreat.edu>
  • To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 44, Issue 1
  • Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:13:43 -0500

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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