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

["Jim Forest" <jhforest AT gmail.com>]

Dear Steve,

>> Percy -- like most any good novelist -- was at home with the idea
of moral complexity and ambiguity.  But I don't think he'd buy into the
notion of moral equivalence.  Whatever his admiration for Merton,
Percy was no pacifist, nor did he (if I recall correctly) denounce the
war in Vietnam. <<

I'd love to know more about what Walker Percy had to say about the
Vietnam War. He was a supporter of that war at least for several years.
Did his thoughts change as the war dragged on? I wonder what he
thought of the Pentagon Papers, once they became public?

It's helpful looking at the various references re the Vietnam War in Jay
Tolson's well-indexed biography. Percy, Tolson reminds me, was a
passionate supporter of Lyndon Johnson (at one point he actually put
an LBJ bumper sticker on his car, which he said was tantamount in
Louisiana to identifying himself as an "agitator") and was outraged at
the (mainly northern) liberals who refused to recognize Johnson's
basic decency and treated him with absolute scorn, no doubt in part
simply because he was a southerner.

Percy was also strongly anti-communist, and apparently regarded the
Vietnam War -- at least in the war's early years -- as a sad but
necessary task in the effort to prevent yet another expansion of
communism's borders on the world map.

I would be grateful if those on the List who were close to Percy could
tell me more.

Another comment re the first part of your comment:

>> Percy -- like most any good novelist -- was at home with the idea
of moral complexity and ambiguity.  But I don't think he'd buy into the
notion of moral equivalence. <<

I'm not sure Percy was "at home" (in the sense of being comfortable)
with moral complexity and ambiguity, but he certainly had a deep if
probably uncomfortable sense of moral complexity and ambiguity.
This didn't, however, lead him to see everything in shades of grey, as
one sees so vividly in his last novel, "The Thanatos Syndrome." Here 
his rage about euthanasia and chemical fixes of pathological
tendencies was not unlike a lava flow.

Friendly greetings,

Jim Forest

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On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 1:57 PM, Steve Petrica <steve.petrica AT gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 6:50 AM, Jim Forest <jhforest AT gmail.com> wrote:

An extract from Robert Eckert's posting:

>> In one interview, Percy, when asked a question concerning something about living at another time, said he would like to sit on a park bench in NYC in the year 2050 to see how we were doing. To see if we made it.
>> Will we?
>> Percy's questions concerning human destiny are still relevant.
>> Even more so in a post 9/11 age.
>> Bad people possess the capability to inflict inordinate damage upon you and everything you know.

I have a feeling that, if Walker Percy were still with us and could respond, he might point out that it's not only the bad people (Them)
but the good people (Us) who all too often inflict inordinate damage upon a great many people.

My guess is that his response would be along the same lines as something Thomas Merton (a writer Percy greatly admired) wrote
while the Vietnam War was gaining momentum.

Well, yes and no.  Percy -- like most any good novelist -- was at home with the idea of moral complexity and ambiguity.  But I don't think he'd buy into the notion of moral equivalence.  Whatever his admiration for Merton, Percy was no pacifist, nor did he (if I recall correctly) denounce the war in Vietnam.

Steve

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-- 
Jim & Nancy Forest
Kanisstraat 5
1811 GJ Alkmaar
The Netherlands
Jim: jhforest AT gmail.com
Nancy: forestflier AT gmail.com
phone: (072) 515-4180 (int'l: 00-31-72-515-4180)
personal web site: www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/
Orthodox Peace Fellowship web site: www.incommunion.org
photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/
recently published: "Silent as a Stone," a children's book about a community of rescuers in Nazi-occupied Paris:
http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/silent-as-a-stone-mother-maria-of-paris-and-the-trash-can-rescue/
another new book: "The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life":
http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/the-road-to-emmaus-pilgrimage-as-a-way-of-life/

* * *

Nancy and I have been keeping a journal that
follows our recent kidney transplant. A blog has
been set up for this purpose -- A Tale of Two Kidneys. 
See: http://ataleof2kidneys.blogspot.com/

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