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  • From: honeyjbc1 <honeyjbc AT gmail.com>
  • To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion / Chapter 4.6 - Chapter 4.15
  • Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2025 19:18:49 -0400

So much. So much to consider.
As I read this packed section of the assignment i keep going back and forth, like Jamie, like Will, like Kitty, and find it hard to stay tuned in.

Almost all the characters, particularly in this section, confuse me instead of clearing things up and defining themselves. This is, of course, Percy's whimsy. Is Sutter insightful or merely a self indulgent drunk? Is Rita knowledgeable about herself or not? Does Jamie have goals or understanding of what he wants out of the short time he has left?
Is Kitty in love and does she have her priorities straight?
Is Val the key to it all? 

Does Percy want us to do all of this soul searching or just read, enjoy the ride, and wait to unravel it all at the end? 

So - I comment on your points:

1. You may be onto something here, Leonard.
2.  Percy explains on the page that instead of doing his good deeds to please G-d, Abou Ben Adam did them just to be a good man. And he pleased G-d by default. Imagine that. No impressive reason, just ordinary niceness. It goes over Will's head anyway. He is too self absorbed, making this part even funnier. 
Is Sutter just showing off or is he smarter than he pretends to be?
3. Later we see in the assigned reading Sutter opines on the sexual revolution. He seems to see things the way I do, that it set back women and liberated nobody.  He considers it a reversal of liberty, rather. I agree. As for the rest of his writings, I leave that to others to answer. I don't know yet if Sutter is insightful or not.
4. I have no idea what Sutter's diagnosis of Will is, or indeed if he is smart or just ironic, an empty shell. All I know is the writing of the pages where Will is seeking help from Sutter is wonderful and hilarious.
5. I don't know enough yet. I have to finish the book to see if Percy lets us know.
6. I don't want to second guess Percy about Kitty, but so far she is a good match for the fuzzy Will. But I have a suspicion this relationship is doomed to fail. I shall have to wait and see because I don't remember anything about this book. Will is attracted at first because he sees her as a spy through that telescope and is smitten. But it is hard to have much faith that this match is a good one. Does she have any  enthusiasms, intelligence? Does she merely grab on to what is in front of her? I don't know.
7. I am glad Percy did not include relevance to current events in this book. 
8. Yes, I too thought of Huckleberry Finn. Odysseys of all kinds. The book is supposed to replicate Doestoyevsky's The Idiot, but I don't know that book.
9. Ironic, and backwards - forgetting is the only way to amount to much. One would never expect that as the rule.

***

Now some personal reflections and favorite things from my reading of this section:

I loved the joke that the peephole Will uses to spy (again) on Sutter's room turns out to be just one of those bullet holes from Sutter's aimless shots.

The pages between Sutter and Will are so good. Funny. So is Sutter wise, or not to be trusted? Putting well people in among the near dead and taking sick people out of the hospital, and "treating" Will. Whether he knows what he is doing or not, it makes for great reading and Sutter does get off some good ideas.And he certainly shocks Will by his openness and nonchalance about sex.

The sections about the negros - the discussion of niggers in front of a black man - disconcerting to say the least.

Between Myra and Rita - whatever that is about - I loved Percy's line "There was a voluptuousness about these nightly executions."

Mr. Vaught offers Will the job at his car agency because the salesmen can get them in here but can't get them to closing sales.He ends by telling WIll, "I know that you and I understand each other." Of course Will is in his own empty headed world and doesn't connect with anybody. So when Vaught ends by saying that he is happy to have Will stay here "any time you like", Will answers yes, glumly. I loved that glumly.

Jamie goes off with Sutter after all. That was a surprise to me. But Sutter foretold it by hypnotizing Will and telling him that Will would handle well a surprise happening the next day. Will does take it in his stride. Is that because he was hypnotized or because he always goes with the flow?

The way this section ends is mysterious. He doesn't hit his head badly. Will he be shaken into coherence? What does this fall signify?

Janet Cantor








On Fri, Jul 4, 2025 at 5:23 PM Leonard <leonardh6363 AT gmail.com> wrote:

 

This post covers this week's reading of Chapter 4.6 - Chapter 4.15. 

   

Percy Fans…

 

Happy Fourth…hope you’re enjoying your holiday as much as Dr. More did.

 

I confess, as others have said, this is a tough novel to unravel. I’ve been enjoying how Percy’s books sort of dovetail into one another, with similarities to “The Moviegoer” we’ve noted and with forecasting “Love in the Ruins.” The current section comes after Will meets Sister Val, reminding me of Binx’s Catholicism and ending with a race riot, prefiguring Dr. More’s adventure.

 

1)    Looking back at the Val meeting, she tells Will about Jamie, “I don’t him to die without knowing why he came here, what he is doing here, and why he is leaving” (p. 201). In that Percy is a devout Catholic, is Percy indicating the reader might take a statement by a nun as the crux of the novel? In other words, is Val onto the ultimate source of Will’s troubles?


2)    Next, Will meets Sutter. I love his violent reaction to Leigh Hunt’s poem. What about “Abou Ben Adhem” gets to him? (If you don’t have the poem, skip this question. Anyhow, I have to believe Sutter has a little Mark Twain in him: blaming Hunt for doing “the West in,” is similar to Twain’s not-so-tongue-in-cheek accusation that Sir Walter Scott was the main cause of the Civil War. Meanwhile, Hunt was Keats’s mentor…check out the sonnet contest he challenged his protégé with for an illustration of how great Keats was.)


3)    Besides a latter-day Twain, is it possible Sutter reflects some darker attitudes Percy himself may harbor. I’m not saying Percy is a pornographer, but is there truth in any of Sutter’s ideas (that you can follow)?


4)    Will constantly requests Sutter to explain what is wrong with the sentient engineer…the deja vues, the amnesia…does Sutter think it’s a sexual problem or does he have something else he’s not revealing about Will’s condition?


5)    Then there’s Jamie, who changes his mind about his next destination on every page. Aside from his health, what is ultimately troubling him? He rejects Val’s religious explanation. Is Rita trying to say it’s “political” when she asserts “it is this infinitely dreary amalgam of Fundamentalism and racism” (p. 224)?  When Jamie responds, “No, no, no,” is that Percy’s way of rejecting political (or even social) solutions for the ills of mankind?


6)    Kitty undergoes quite a transmission when she becomes attracted to her desire to become a cliched sorority sister. Why does that happen to her? Is there any hope that she and Will can have a successful relationship? Why does Will stick with her?


7)    Do you think the tone of “The Last Gentleman” darkens the further Will progresses? Some have accounted for that by the historical environment of the time Percy was writing.  It’s interesting to note that Jay Tolson’s biography says Percy was so affected by John Kennedy’s assassination that he spun off multiple pages about it, and lost a year writing. He ended up pulling it out of the final work.


8)    The overall form of “The Last Gentleman” is a diversion from the structures of Percy’s other books. Does a sprawling travel novel like “Huckleberry Finn” (that appears in many ways as an influence) work as well for Percy’s more interior examinations of characters, or is it more of a distraction?


9)    Finally, are Will’s memories, which crop up unexpectedly, especially about his father, are the sort of thing that Kierkegaard warns about in the opening epigram?

 

Of course, I have plenty of other questions, but enough is enough! I think much will be resolved by the end of the book.

 

Thank you all,

Leonard

 

 

 

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