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

[Greg Camacho <gregcamacho8 AT gmail.com>]

Josh, using salty language isn't a sign of being maladjusted. But lashing out at people for slight offenses is easily. Funny that you think email is alienating...

The Search (or journey) is a main theme in all of Percy's fiction, readily acknowledged by most people who take his work seriously. In The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman and Love In the Ruins, the main characters start at an unresolved state, groping for something that integrates their whole person. Some go on literal journeys to get closer to what they sense is an answer. Ultimately, they end up in families, which, in-line with Percy's Catholic faith, is presented as the context for stable and integrative engagement with the Meaning of Life.

Some people have gone through some hellish experience, and when you find out you think, Oh that's why they act that way. And some people are just immature, unable or unwilling to escape their mutilating habits and projections of inner-ruptures. For certain, I'm often immature, but I don't know you and I wouldn't assume the power to read your soul in any which way.

But if you'd like to really attune your sensibilities to Percy's habit of being, you might try to understand how and why he would often focus on the grotesquely obscene (e.g., his reflection on pornography at airports) and yet be such a sincere gentleman, especially in letters. For that, let me recommend Matthew Lickona's "Surfing With Mel", and perhaps anything/everything written by Heather King.

Best regards,

Greg

On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Blaise Gratton <blaisegratton AT gmail.com> wrote:

Ha, I can't seem to get rid of it, either. 

On Oct 10, 2012, at 5:04 PM, Joshua <joshuaemrich AT yahoo.com> wrote:

Kiss my ass. You read to much into the "journey" he wants to take the reader on. I'll be smarmy or whatever the fuck I  want on the Internet. Percy would throw up knowing about this ultimate alienating device. I'll never even meet you. We're totally alienated from each other....so kiss off you literary bullshitter. Enjoy your E-alienation in this group of jackasses I'd rather not hear from but can't get rid of.

Have fun circling the earth!

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 10, 2012, at 2:55 PM, "janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com" <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com> wrote:

No need to be smarmy.

Ruins goes to great lengths to describe the varied beliefs and religious choices of the locals. You meet along the way many goofy characters who justify their specific nuttiness. I love Percy's descriptions of each one. All this is in service to a story which wants the reader to confront his own ideas of religion and good and evil.

 Tom's loss of Doris and the story of how he lost her are examples of what has made him adrift. Though it can be read as sad, there is a joke in the new guy that comes along to steal her away. It is the new age "religion" that attracts Doris or distracts her from the loss of their child. So much in Ruins and in other Percy is mocking people's beliefs and how they come by them. It was the way Percy described her leaving that I remember as written with tongue in cheek. Perhaps my impression is wrong.

Ellen's deliberate lack of religion does not detract from her being just the right one for Tom at the end. Her steadiness is what he needs. And after all the nonsense of the characters and story in Ruins, she represents calm and order. He has found his love in the ruins.
I always love the way Percy ends his books. Be sure when you read Percy to give yourself permission to laugh. He wants to take you on  a wild ride and bring you home to predictability. Every one of his novels offers some form of love, of caring for someone else, at the end.
Relax and enjoy the journey.
Janet Cantor

They are 2 different women. And questions can be dumb.
(Joshua)

> hello all,
>
> I'm a English graduate student at Texas A&M, and i have a question that hopefully can be answered (or at least assuaged) with consensus. In _Love in the Ruins_ Tom More repeatedly reminisces on his dead wife Doris. we are told that she was a highly principled yet non-religious woman (i believe he refers to her as an ex-episcopalian who found interest in eastern religion). Ellen Oglethorpe, Dr More's secretary and eventual lover, is the referred to in a similar fashion-- a Presbyterian who has "no use" for God, but who adheres to a strict moral code. How then are we to differentiate these women (if we even are to do so), especially in regards to their effect on More? can More's "choosing" of Ellen be a return to a previous state of life--life before the loss of his child--or is there as subtle difference between Doris and Ellen which i am missing?
>
>
> thank you in advance for any enlightenment
>
> Alex Bell
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