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

[Nikkibar AT aol.com]

Although we did not read Julian Jaynes' (TOOC&TBOTBM)book in the book group, we did discuss Jaynes' theory of the development of the corpus callosum  and the notion that our distant human ancestors may have walked around in the world hearing instructions from some outer or perhaps inner voice, like so many teenagers with cosmic i-Pods. Walker tended to resist any attribution to animals of anything that smacked of an animal soul in the lower primates or mammals. I always held for the opposite view and it was I who introduced Jaynes' theories to the group.

 

On the other hand, Walker was uncommonly fond of his own animals (to the point of sardonic sentimentality) and kept schnauzers, and a Siamese cat that I gave him (Old Broke-tail, photographed on his lap in a TIME magazine story) and at the time of his death he had an affectionate corgi named Sweet Thing. The schnauzers were forever getting smashed flat on the street and were a cause for great grief whenever it would happen. Unfortunately Walker developed a painful allergy to Old Broke who had to be given away. There was nothing sardonic about MY affection for the non street wise schnauzers or Old Broke, as I was (and am) unreservedly sentimental about mine, but then I think of them as younger brothers, a non-canonical view that Walker regarded as just plain silly. But then, whenever one of them got spread-eagle flattened on Jahncke Ave. he was some broken up. Sometimes the emotional centers in the hippocampus over-rule the cerebrum.

 

Towards the end of Jaynes' popularity, the word went round that his book had been an elaborate academic leg-pull, and Walker very much enjoyed feeling that he had gotten the best of the argument, in the notion that even Jaynes had not been serious. Later I had occasion to discuss this urban myth with Jaynes' tennis partner and his view was equivocal. So we'll never know.

 

Nikki

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