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

["John E. Riley" <jeriley AT uark.edu>]

Janet:

You wrote:
"The reason the Father Smith story was in the book was because it replicated 
something that happened to Percy himself. And he was haunted by it and 
decided to write the book around it, I am guessing..."

I think you are correct to note the biographical roots of the Father Smith 
character and the "tenderness leads to the gas chambers" motif in Thanatos 
(several critics have written about the latter idea and Percy's "debt" to 
Flannery O'Connor though I don't have those citations handy).

As you probably know, Percy traveled to Germany in 1934, and Father Smith's 
musings about HIS trip to Germany as a young man are fairly transparently 
patterned on Percy's own memories.  Percy was certainly haunted to the end by 
his admiration, even attraction for a teenaged son of the German family he 
boarded with who was a member of the Hitler Youth. The philosopher in Percy 
was impressed by the power of absolute belief he saw in the young man--which 
he compared ironically to his own experience in the Boy Scouts (!) I believe 
Thanatos can be read--along with Lancelot, certainly--as Percy's attempt to 
grapple with the concept of evil, especially in the context of people and 
cultures who don't believe they are capable of evil.  In other words, evil is 
most dangerous in people and cultures who don't REALLY believe that evil 
exists, and certainly not in themselves.  Percy's conversion to Catholicism 
might have had much to do with that system's unambiguous position that evil 
exists in the world, a perspective he surely found lacking in contemporary 
ideologies, including "scientism" (a misguided belief in science's power to 
potentially cure all human ills). 

For a well-written, scholarly account of the South's WWII-era flirtation with 
fascism, read Robert Brinkmeyer's The Fourth Ghost: White Southern Writers 
and European Fascism, 1930-1950.  There is a chapter in the book on William 
Alexander Percy, including a discussion of Lanterns on the Levee.  I was 
fortunate enough to sit in on several of Bob's classes; he is a brilliant 
scholar, writer, and teacher (he is with the U of South Carolina last I am 
aware of).

http://amzn.com/0807133833  (Link to Amazon record for The Fourth Ghost)

Thanks again for your thoughts and your continued contributions to this 
listserv.  Your comments always stimulate my own thinking on Percy's work. 
Your book group has no idea what's in store for them, ha ha.

John Riley
Reference
Mullins Library
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA


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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2 (janet cantor)
   2.  Percy-L Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2 (janet cantor)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2012 19:57:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: janet cantor <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
        <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID:
        <1341802676.80565.YahooMailClassic AT web125902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I wasn't aware of the things you tell me here, not the Flannery O'Connot 
phrase, not the Lady Chatterly's Lover reference.
But I don't think Percy was restricting his reference to the Holocaust. The 
reason the Father Smith story was in the book was because it replicated 
something that happened to Percy himself. And he was haunted by it and 
decided to write the book around it, I am guessing. I think Percy was warning 
us not to think we know what's best for everyone in cookie cutter perfection.
Thanks for the reply and lucky you that you got to talk to him.
Janet

--- On Sun, 7/8/12, marcus AT loyno.edu <marcus AT loyno.edu> wrote:


Janet Cantor writes, "On page 128 Father Smith asks, "Do you know where
tenderness leads?" And he answers,..." to the gas chamber"."

I think Percy told somone he was paraphasing a remark by Flannery O'Connor.

I argued with Percy about this epigraph more than once.? My reply was that
tenderness (romantic secular sentimentality, kitsch, etc.) may have been
involved in the cultural roots of the Holocaust, but plain old nasty
anti-semitism burrowing through centuries of the "Christian West" was the
primary agent driving the catastrophe.? I don't recall that we ever
concluded our discussion.

By the way, the original title of Lady Chatterly's Lover was, of course,
"Tenderness."

Marcus Smith


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> Today's Topics:
>
>? ? 1. The Thanatos Syndrome - some thoughts (janet cantor)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2012 19:22:20 -0700 (PDT)
> From: janet cantor <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>
> Subject: [percy-l] The Thanatos Syndrome - some thoughts
> To: percy lists <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID:
> ??? <1341714140.22561.YahooMailClassic AT web125902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> If you have not read this book, do not read this. If you have read it and
> preferably twice, see what you think of my musings so far.
>
> I am constructing my discussion of The Thanatos Syndrome for a discussion
> of it with my book group in September early.
>
> ?I am discovering new things as I prepare.
>
> The first time I read it I wanted to take a scalpel to it and knew just
> where. The second time, when I read it more carefully to take notes and
> construct what I will use, I found very little to edit out. The
> repetitions and over lengthy scenes this time, instead of being annoying,
> were funny, and okay with me. They were there for a reason. Or so it
> seemed to me.
>
> One example. I kept seeing similar lines interjected page after page about
> a shaft of sunlight going through the trees that dissolved into the dark
> underbrush and variations of that. On
>? first reading I thought they were gratuitous and unoriginal and even
> annoying in their repetition.
> On second reading I came up with a perfect rationale for them. Light
> dissolving into or being swallowed up by darkness. White and black, as in
> whites and negroes in the south, Well, that's obvious. But that's not all.
> On a fishing trip, when Van Dorn wants to catch a certain fish and asks
> why they don't trim some of the branches, Tom tells him then the sunfish
> would leave. "You don't dare mess with light and shade." Tom says.
> On page 128 Father Smith asks, "Do you know where tenderness leads?" And
> he answers,..." to the gas chamber".
> The do gooders of this book have the best of intentions but, as the line
> says, every pre conceived utopia needs a police state to keep it running.
> So in my mind I took all of these shafts of light and reflections of
> silvery light fighting to get through and all those darknesses swallowing
> them up, to represent
>? the forces of good and evil. Percy knew what he was doing. By inserting
> these phrases so often out of nowhere into his descriptive passages he
> was subliminally undergirding his main theme. People must not try to play
> G-d. They must respect free will of individuals because no matter what
> good intentions they have, in the end they interfere with people's
> personhood. No matter what mistakes people make while using free will,
> that is better than do gooders trying to manipulate the world to be a
> more perfect one. All tenderness leads to the gas chambers.
> And by having it all come from Father Smith, the moralist, to Tom, our
> everyman, the reader's surrogate, and thus from Percy, psychiatrist to the
> world, he is, not subtly this time, in his last novel, making his case.
> At the end of the book is that wonderful paragraph where Percy lets us
> know that the? 20th century was the most murderous in history and where
> was G-d. All He had to do was stand
>? back and not interfere and allow man to do what he did and the devil
> could laugh while it went on. Light fights the dark and the dark seems to
> be winning.
> I will play for my book group the last three minutes of Percy's talk to
> Notre Dame so they can hear him in person giving the warning.
>
> Another great joke is that in any mystery part of the tension comes from
> delaying the solution. So all through as Tom is constantly anxious to get
> going, Father Smith keeps saying "one more thing". The first time, I found
> it irritating. This time I found it very funny and it added to the tension
> as well. Or Dr. Comeaux grabs his arm as he's ready to bolt and keeps him
> back. Lucy, Van Dorn, so many others keep Tom trapped for a time.
>
> I will read lots of things that I consider funny. And show them examples
> of Percy's vivid descriptive passages, his interest in language, Hudeen, a
> marvelous creation.
>
> My overall goal is not to discuss the story or
>? the characters, but to talk about Percy, his writing, why it works on me,
> his themes. I intend to show how this book represents a recapitulation of
> the history of his whole thinking life. Scientist,? Psychiatrist,?
> philosopher, semioticist, drinker, Catholic, moralist, and finally story
> teller.
>
> Two things left to ponder over. I am not convinced that the book is
> improved by making the do gooders sex offenders. It would have been a more
> ambitious book if they were more ambiguously wrong instead of obviously
> evil. I did love the way they were all placed in their jobs at the end,
> especially the ape teaching the person how to communicate again.
> And, speaking of the end, I have a theory of what that "Well, well, well"
> means, but I don't know yet if I'm correct.
>
> In September's discussion, I will tape it to hear how it sounds.
>
> Janet Cantor
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2012 20:03:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: janet cantor <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>
Subject: [percy-l]  Percy-L Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
        <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID:
        <1341803012.84398.YahooMailClassic AT web125902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

As you can see, I did mention this, too.

I must say I find a small similarity in the do gooders of today who want to 
tell us what to eat, drink and how to live. Perhaps Percy would not 
appreciate the comparison, but it came to my mind as I read the book. I will 
not bring that up when I discuss the book in my group, though.J
Janet

And, those of you who have read Tolson's biography know this, that this
subject was particularly important to Percy (as we see this theme often
repeated in his novels) because when he was young (college?) he took a trip
to Germany in the 1930s and greatly admired the enthusiasm and devotion to a
cause of the Hitler Youth.? Later, when he saw how it all played out, he saw
how mistaken he had been, how this kind of sentimentalism can be quite evil.

K

-----Original Message-----
From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of marcus AT loyno.edu
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 1:31 PM
To: Percy list
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2

Janet Cantor writes, "On page 128 Father Smith asks, "Do you know where
tenderness leads?" And he answers,..." to the gas chamber"."

I think Percy told somone he was paraphasing a remark by Flannery O'Connor.

I argued with Percy about this epigraph more than once.? My reply was that
tenderness (romantic secular sentimentality, kitsch, etc.) may have been
involved in the cultural roots of the Holocaust, but plain old nasty
anti-semitism burrowing through centuries of the "Christian West" was the
primary agent driving the catastrophe.? I don't recall that we ever
concluded our discussion.

By the way, the original title of Lady Chatterly's Lover was, of course,
"Tenderness."

Marcus Smith


> Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to
> ??? percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> ??? http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> ??? percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> ??? percy-l-owner AT lists.ibiblio.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>? ? 1. The Thanatos Syndrome - some thoughts (janet cantor)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2012 19:22:20 -0700 (PDT)
> From: janet cantor <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>
> Subject: [percy-l] The Thanatos Syndrome - some thoughts
> To: percy lists <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID:
> ??? <1341714140.22561.YahooMailClassic AT web125902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> If you have not read this book, do not read this. If you have read it
> and preferably twice, see what you think of my musings so far.
>
> I am constructing my discussion of The Thanatos Syndrome for a
> discussion of it with my book group in September early.
>
> ?I am discovering new things as I prepare.
>
> The first time I read it I wanted to take a scalpel to it and knew
> just where. The second time, when I read it more carefully to take
> notes and construct what I will use, I found very little to edit out.
> The repetitions and over lengthy scenes this time, instead of being
> annoying, were funny, and okay with me. They were there for a reason.
> Or so it seemed to me.
>
> One example. I kept seeing similar lines interjected page after page
> about a shaft of sunlight going through the trees that dissolved into
> the dark underbrush and variations of that. On? first reading I
> thought they were gratuitous and unoriginal and even annoying in their
> repetition.
> On second reading I came up with a perfect rationale for them. Light
> dissolving into or being swallowed up by darkness. White and black, as
> in whites and negroes in the south, Well, that's obvious. But that's not
all.
> On a fishing trip, when Van Dorn wants to catch a certain fish and
> asks why they don't trim some of the branches, Tom tells him then the
> sunfish would leave. "You don't dare mess with light and shade." Tom says.
> On page 128 Father Smith asks, "Do you know where tenderness leads?"
> And he answers,..." to the gas chamber".
> The do gooders of this book have the best of intentions but, as the
> line says, every pre conceived utopia needs a police state to keep it
running.
> So in my mind I took all of these shafts of light and reflections of
> silvery light fighting to get through and all those darknesses
> swallowing them up, to represent? the forces of good and evil. Percy
> knew what he was doing. By inserting these phrases so often out of
> nowhere into his descriptive passages he was subliminally undergirding
> his main theme. People must not try to play G-d. They must respect
> free will of individuals because no matter what good intentions they
> have, in the end they interfere with people's personhood. No matter
> what mistakes people make while using free will, that is better than
> do gooders trying to manipulate the world to be a more perfect one.
> All tenderness leads to the gas chambers.
> And by having it all come from Father Smith, the moralist, to Tom, our
> everyman, the reader's surrogate, and thus from Percy, psychiatrist to
> the world, he is, not subtly this time, in his last novel, making his
case.
> At the end of the book is that wonderful paragraph where Percy lets us
> know that the? 20th century was the most murderous in history and
> where was G-d. All He had to do was stand? back and not interfere and
> allow man to do what he did and the devil could laugh while it went
> on. Light fights the dark and the dark seems to be winning.
> I will play for my book group the last three minutes of Percy's talk
> to Notre Dame so they can hear him in person giving the warning.
>
> Another great joke is that in any mystery part of the tension comes
> from delaying the solution. So all through as Tom is constantly
> anxious to get going, Father Smith keeps saying "one more thing". The
> first time, I found it irritating. This time I found it very funny and
> it added to the tension as well. Or Dr. Comeaux grabs his arm as he's
> ready to bolt and keeps him back. Lucy, Van Dorn, so many others keep Tom
trapped for a time.
>
> I will read lots of things that I consider funny. And show them
> examples of Percy's vivid descriptive passages, his interest in
> language, Hudeen, a marvelous creation.
>
> My overall goal is not to discuss the story or? the characters, but to
> talk about Percy, his writing, why it works on me, his themes. I
> intend to show how this book represents a recapitulation of the
> history of his whole thinking life. Scientist,? Psychiatrist,?
> philosopher, semioticist, drinker, Catholic, moralist, and finally
> story teller.
>
> Two things left to ponder over. I am not convinced that the book is
> improved by making the do gooders sex offenders. It would have been a
> more ambitious book if they were more ambiguously wrong instead of
> obviously evil. I did love the way they were all placed in their jobs
> at the end, especially the ape teaching the person how to communicate
again.
> And, speaking of the end, I have a theory of what that "Well, well, well"
> means, but I don't know yet if I'm correct.
>
> In September's discussion, I will tape it to hear how it sounds.
>
> Janet Cantor
> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was
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>
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> **************************************
>



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An archive of all list discussion is available at 
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Visit The Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy

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