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  • From: "Wade Riddick" <wriddick AT usa.net>
  • To: <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] Part five of the slow read of The Last Gentleman Chapter 5 to 5.6
  • Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2025 13:39:42 -0400



[Paraphrasing from memory]
Will: "Why is everyone drinking in the bar so happy when I can't be? What's
wrong with me?"
"What makes you think they're happy?"

This is the moment of FOMO fallout, the kids would say. Will begins to
understand that his eye is lying to him as he's watching "people" in their
*natural* environment - seeking solace in the "immanence" of the world - and
not getting very far besides the hangover.

The undercurrent of contempt and jealousy/alienation now has a chance to
reverse.

Kids today would say this encapsulates the wisdom about FOMO it takes so many
of them years of flailing around on (anti-)social media to realize.

The influencer culture is an explosion of fin de siècle cults without any
real religion/faith, all revolving around aspirations for material gains.
(The engineer of "money" wants to "fix things." "But what does it profit a
man...")

"The love of the Father is not in them..." _The Bible_ would say. ["If anyone
loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the
world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing
away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever for
if you love the world and it passes away, you pass with it." [1 John 2:15-17
NKJV]]

Will is realizing the eye lies to him or there are none so blind as those who
will not see. This relates to Pierce's conception of language as a triad.
Will is a flat rat living in flat land, an engineer navigating in a maze with
2D symbols. But words have a third component that reaches inside another
person's mind and connects us to their interior "soul," if you will.
"Re-entry" perhaps puts us into that orbit that connects us to others through
that bridge of language. Some forms of this empathy/"theory of mind" are
unavailable to the autistic, who tends towards maps, mazes and other
mathematized systems; alcohol is deadening this empathy in the bar hoppers.
In boisterous laughter, they retain the veneer of connection, but the
drunkenness avoids the profound substance of connection. It is, in essence, a
chemical con. Flat rat hunts for his cheese when it's neither his stomach nor
his vision guiding him true. Or booze.

Steve Martin's con man makes a comment closing _Leap of Faith_ that comes to
mind.

"Look. I run a show here. It's a lot of smoke and noise and it's strictly
for the suckers. I've been pulling one kind of scam or another since I was
your age. If there's one thing I know it's how to spot the genuine article
because that's what you've got to watch out for. Not the cops. You can
always get around the cops. But the one thing you can never ever get around
is the genuine article. And you, kid, are the genuine article."

"Are you saying you think you're a fake?"

"I know I'm a fake."

"Well, what difference does it make if you get the job done?"

"Kid, it makes all the difference in the world."

And, no, I didn't find Percy's vocabulary or references very strange. I read
_The Last Gentleman_ just out of high school - either for pleasure or class -
back when the pace of my world allowed for such luxuries and I was plowing
through 30-50 books a year. While others complain about the "forced busing,"
I was in paperback bliss.

Wade Riddick

-------
15. Sutter's notes now include some observations about Barrett. These I do
not understand. Can someone please give me a synopsis of what Sutter is saying
here including an explanation of the word immanence?

I think “immanence” refers to being a part of the physical
world (the environment, society, experience). Sutter seems to be saying that
Will is trying to be happy by becoming part of those realities, and that is
a
lost cause. While I think Will has his own form of alienation, here is where
Percy
criticizes Sutter: he claims to be in a superior world of
“transcendence,” but
with lewd sex as his only way to rejoin the world, and his temptation for
suicide, Sutter is in despair.

16. Percy often talks of how we behave on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon.
Here is Sutter ending his comments with "...In fact my problem is how to live
from one ordinary minute to the next on a Wednesday afternoon." Is Sutter
speaking for Percy all along?

Actually, those words are Will’s (it’s hard to see what
graphs are indented), but you're right: they do come closer to Percy (and Dr.
More), who
advocates an un-alienated existence that involves “re-entering the lovely
ordinary
world.”

17. in Chapter Five, part six there is "the locus of pure possibility".
"What a man can be the next minute bears no relationship to what he is or was
the minute before." This very thought came early in the book in the first few
pages.

I believe that is another Kierkegaard idea related to his
“rotation.” (You who are scholars,
please don’t make fun of me!)

18. Sutter picks Barrett up and tells him to visit Jamie in the hospital,
that he is very sick.
***
Now I want to have some fun. With Percy there are no accidents. Notice he
didn't call him Bill Barrett. He is called Will.
I kept playing with that. Will he or won't he? Does he have free will? Is he
willing his actions or absolutely not doing that?I believe it is no accident
that he is called Will and if I tried I could probably find more jokes using
his name. Can you find some?Let's hear from some of you. I look forward to
getting some insights.

Hahaha…Our protagonist has a great many burdens to carry…will
he bear it?



Thank you, Janet! Love your questions.

Leonard






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