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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3
- From: Doug Brown <wply1223 AT gmail.com>
- To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3
- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2025 19:23:19 -0400
Hi y’all. Just a few thoughts to add.
- The notes from the group have been exceptional. Each of you has added to my enjoyment and understanding of the book. Y’all are not just insightful, you’re funny. I appreciate you.
- Dang it. I was going to make some comment about the sound of the name Forney Aiken, but a few of you beat me to it. I do find it interesting that eventually Percy abandons the name and just refers to Forney as “the pseudo-negro” just as he reverts to calling Will “the engineer.”
- Like Janet, I am disappointed in the pseudo-negro digression. It’s utterly unnecessary and, to my eye, does not add a thing to the overall story or even the travel narrative. I think even Percy didn’t have much heart for it, as evidenced by the cartoonish characters and the reverting back to labels for the two key people. It feels like something Percy talked about with Shelby Foote over cocktails and they laughed about it and decided it had to go into the book, but it doesn’t work, and Percy didn’t have the heart to pull it back out, to kill his darling. That’s nothing but me speculating, but it feels that way.
- Percy effectively uses digressions in other novels. Hell, Love in the Ruins is virtually an extended series of digressions – and it’s a genius work of art. Here? Nah. I’m happy to get back to the main narrative.
- Speaking of Shelby Foote – bear with me here. A couple of you have mentioned the idea of the van being named Ulysses. I have this goofy notion that if Foote wrote the American Iliad, then Percy’s six novels form a sort of American Odyssey. There are some travels going on in several of the books, but I think of it more as an Odyssey of the American soul. Sorry, that sounds a bit highfalutin’. But maybe worth a thought.
- I mentioned in my notes on the first section that I love Percy’s dialogue. I thought Chapter 2 Section 12 was brilliant in this regard. In 2.11 and 2.13, we see standard dialogue, and it’s as good as ever. But in 2.12 we get what is mostly a narration by Kitty. If Percy had tried to give it to us as regular dialogue, it would have felt artificial – her speaking in such long paragraphs. But Percy brilliantly drops the quotation marks and only has Will jump in occasionally with a puzzled response, some of which may not have been spoken. The implication is that it’s not word-for-word what Kitty says. It’s an account of her narrative with her voice embedded. Honestly, I love this technique, and it just reminds me how strong a writer Percy was.
I have read your explanation of the “prayer meeting” three times now, Rhonda, and can only offer, gratefully, a thought from the great poet Lucretius: Lucida tela diei—bright shafts of daylight!On Jun 26, 2025, at 3:46 PM, RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com> wrote:Dear Chuck and list,
Sorry for my tardy reply! I had thought that I had sent it out Monday — maybe Tuesday — but it turns out I didn't finish it. Apparently, I wandered off to give feedback on a student assignment (most likely written by AI) rather than finishing it up and pressing send.
In reply to the previous fine analysis from Chuck, Leonard, and Janet, I'd first like to say that both of you are fine scholars. Percy himself, I believe, would agree with me that the "general reader" who applies a fine mind to reading his fiction is who he is most interested in reaching.
Regarding the Tyree section, I fall into Leonard's camp. Realistic fiction reflects the language, behavior, and values of particular people in a specific time and place. Poppy Vaught is speaking the way men spoke to each other during that time. How do I know? From the letters between Percy and Foote, for one. They knew "colored" was considered polite, so men like Poppy probably would have used that or "negroes" in polite society. But just between men, I think a word now considered obscene was business as usual. If we avoid all literature that reveals what our society once was, if we attempt to live constantly in the "more perfect" present, then I believe we will be worse for it. It's the old saying, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." Literature provides us with the past in a more visceral way than history generally does.
As for the preacher scene, in this "fresh" reading of the novel, for the first time I think it may be connected to Forney Aiken in certain ways. Janet's observation regarding this name, which sounds more than a little like fornicate, can't be thought of as coincidental. As Leonard points out, Percy loved a good pun. So consider this passage:“The prayer meeting must be over,” said the man ironically.Out poured old Brahms, the old spoiled gorgeous low-German music but here at home surely and not in Hamburg.“What do they expect,” said the man now, westbound. He took his turn under the street light and came back. “Now they,” he went on, nodding to the east. “They fornicate and the one who fornicates best is the preacher.”
Will's father calls it a prayer meeting ironically, suggesting that it isn't a prayer meeting at all. And that leads me to suspect it is more likely to be a KKK meeting. He's just calling it a prayer meeting in reference to all of the Christian symbolism.
As for fornication, I don't think it's meant quite literally. It seems to be a stand-in for any sort of dishonorable behavior, whether sexual or not. If that's the case, then the Grand Wizard of the KKK, the "preacher," is the worst of all fornicators. And what is the father going to do? I won't spoil it. However, this passage gives a hint:
Over the years his family had turned ironical and lost its gift for action. It was an honorable and violent family, but gradually the violence had been deflected and turned inward. The great grandfather knew what was what and said so and acted accordingly and did not care what anyone thought. He even wore a pistol in a holster like a Western hero and once met the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in a barbershop and invited him then and there to shoot it out in the street. The next generation, the grandfather, seemed to know what was what but he was not really so sure. He was brave but he gave much thought to the business of being brave. He too would have shot it out with the Grand Wizard if only he could have made certain it was the thing to do. The father was a brave man too and he said he didn’t care what others thought, but he did care. More than anything else, he wished to act with honor and to be thought well of by other men. So living for him was a strain. He became ironical. For him it was not a small thing to walk down the street on an ordinary September morning. In the end he was killed by his own irony and sadness and by the strain of living out an ordinary day in a perfect dance of honor.
Under the hoods the KKK members wore were often community leaders. What greater fornication is there than to hide under a hood and brutalize others?
So what about Forney Aiken? What makes him a "fornicator" (besides what Will might consider loose sexual morals)? His so-called activism is accomplished without having real skin in the game. He keeps that white patch on his arm as a get out of jail free card. The implication seems to be that Aiken is willing to utilize the misfortune of others for his own fame. I read Griffin's book long ago, and I have thought of Griffin in connection to Aiken. But I don't think Aiken is meant to be Griffin, as much as Aiken is meant to represent a sort of liberal activist who plays with the life-and-death situations of others, and does so for his own benefit more than for theirs. Or, at least, Aiken represent a certain type of Northerner who comes South to stir things up and then retreats to the safety of a North that is as segregated as the South but is underhanded about its racism.
So that's my take on the preacher scene, and it leads me to Forney Aiken in a new way. I always knew Last Gentleman was social satire, but I hadn't made these connections before. Every time I read Percy's writing, it unfolds in a different way for me.
Best to all,
Rhonda McDonnellMember of the Institute for Studies in PragmaticismTexas Tech University
"You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." ~Walker Percy~
From: percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org <percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org> on behalf of Leonard <leonardh6363 AT gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2025 1:26 PM
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3[percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3
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Charles Lowry lowry.charles AT gmail.com via lists.ibiblio.org
Jun 20, 2025, 1:49 PM (2 days ago)
to Percy-L:Chuck…I can relate: I’m no academic, either (not that I didn’t try…newspapers and motorcycles kept getting in the way), but you are making a closer, more thoughtful reading of the Last Gent than I’m able to do.
Regarding motivations (love your comparison of Mr. V with Mr. S in The Moviegoer), I think at this point Will considers many possibilities. My favorite line about Mr. Vaught’s proposal concerns practicality: “The engineer wished he would mention a salary” (p. 82). Will also considers he could be on a search for his “identity,” which is a theme, but linking it with the flawed psychiatrist may be Percy’s way of diminishing it as a central concern [“…he began to think it mightn’t be a bad idea to return to the South and discover his identity, to use Dr. Gamow’s _expression_” (p. 76)]. There’s also the quest to find a family, especially a father figure. Will isn’t as sophisticated as Binx Bolling, but I imagine, as you suggest, he’s on the existential Search our moviegoer talks about. I’m not sure at this point that Kitty plays an important role, other than his being motivated by infatuation.
I don’t have a problem with the Tyree business. Mr. Vaught’s character is revealed to be racist. I don’t think Percy would change that today. But Mr. Vaught is an affable fellow…his racism doesn’t extend to violence as we see later in Mort Prince’s neighbors. To maintain his affability in a 2025 version, Percy would somehow have made him aware that his attitude is unacceptable. Percy is making fun of that aspect of his character, reminiscent of Binx’s outspoken Uncle Oscar.
I couldn’t find anything in Google Maps, either. I couldn’t even find the Gulf of Mexico.
In that scene, Will is transported in his mind back to his hometown Ithaca, thinking of the levee and memories of his father. I suppose there’s a Houston Street in Ithaca, as in so many Southern towns. De Ridder isn’t so prevalent. But there’s also no Ithaca in Mississippi, I don’t think. Percy fictionalizes geography very often, perhaps to avoid lawsuits!
Honestly, I haven’t figured out Rita.
You bet. Too early for me to see what Will’s journey is all about. Reminiscences of Huck Finn’s trip down the river.
Hahaha! I like Ms. Cantor’s observation about Forney (porny?) Aiken’s name. Though I approve of Percy’s penchant to make silly puns.
--Thank you!!
Leonard
On Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 1:49 PM Charles Lowry <lowry.charles AT gmail.com> wrote:This post covers this week’s reading of Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3.
Those sections are pp. 72-142 in the FSG edition, pp. 74-149 in the Picador paperback edition.
For the sake of convenience and as an aid to my own distracted habits--how I envy Rhonda's clear organization, at once elegant and precise--I have divided this part of the novel into four sections, and I follow with a few thoughts or questions or starting points for discussion. In your reactions and responses, do not feel as though you are confined to my divisions or my starting points. I am no academic; I am in fact that most dreaded of creatures, the general reader. That is to say that in my case I read, generally fiction, for insight into "...the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice."
Chapter 2.6-2.8. pp. 74-87 [These page numbers, and all following page numbers, refer to the Picador paperback edition.] Will goes to Jamie's hospital room for Jamie's and Kitty's birthday party. I wanted to mention two things here.
* One of the important things that happens here is the mutual decision of Mr. Vaught and Will that Will should come to work for the family. I was intrigued by the motivation of the two parties. Mr. Vaught's motivation was clear enough: Will was "one of them." His family in Mississippi was known to the Vaught family, The kicker was Mr. Vaught's discovery that Jamie was a Princeton man (there were, I note, no Princeton women until 1969, three years after this novel was published) and an Episcopalian: "Man, there's nothing wrong with you." (p. 78) Rita subsequently reinforces this mindset later when she describes her father-in-law as a man who flits from enthusiasm to enthusiasm. It struck me, by the way, that these characters such as Mr. Vaught (and, for instance, Mr, Sartalamaccia, the property developer who buys Binx's fishing club in The Moviegoer) feel free to revel in their philosophy and their memories, but they always retain an underlying, self-interested pragmatism: "Right now the main thing we need is somebody to help me drive home." (p. 80) If though that accounts for Mr. Vaught's motive in offering the job, what accounts for Jamie's decision to accept it? I think (I may be wrong!) that Percy gives us a broad hint in the paragraph following Mr. Vaught's discovery that Will was a Princeton man and an Episcopalian: Recall Mr. Vaught's reaction: "Man, there's nothing wrong with you." What kind of reaction does that evoke? "But if there is nothing with me, he thought, then there is something wrong with the world. And if there is nothing wrong with the world, then I have wasted my life and that is the worst mistake of all." Is that Will's motivation to accept the job? To find out if he is the one who has gone wrong, or if it is the world. It is, in any case, the most Percyesque of dilemmas, as anyone who has ever thrilled to Binx's battle with everydayness will recall. But am I wrong? Do I overstress this insight of Will's about himself and the world as motivation to leave behind Macy's and the YMCA and the BMT? Does Kitty fit into his motivation?
* My second thought about this section is more vexatious and troublesome, in that it involves what we might think of as the "Tyree vocabulary" question. (pp.84-85) This observation is partly about the book and partly about us. Do I surmise correctly that every one of us squirmed as we read those couple pages? Did we all think of Mark Twain and Flannery O'Connor and others? Is there any contemporary approach to this situation that makes sense? My exposure to this kind of impact has come largely from friends. I recall attending a conference with a black colleague at Stone Mountain. The direction finder in the rental car was set to audio, and I'll never forget his cringe at, "In one hundred yards turn left onto Stonewall Jackson Boulevard." How do we measure the values of historical accuracy and common human decency? If this novel were published fifty years later, 2016 instead of 1966, what would these two pages look like?
Chapter 2.9-2.14 (end of chapter), pp. 87-123. Will prepares for the voyage with the Vaughts, learns about the family and develops his relationships with Kitty and Rita. I want to mention two things here, though if they are not the two things you think should be mentioned, feel free to speak up.
* I confess that I am puzzled and confused by the incident with the street preacher. (pp. 98-101) The only De Ridder Street Google and I could find was in South Africa, yet in this episode it clearly intersects with Houston Street, obviously a Manhattan thoroughfare but problematic in itself, in that it is three miles south of Central Park, which does in fact have a BMT station at its edge. Every time I get to thinking that I am an accomplished reader, this passage or certain passages in The Sound and the Fury or Ulysses come to mind, and I hope I am not alone in being unable to figure out what Percy or Faulkner or Joyce is up to. Can somebody help me?
* Although in our demented days of internet pornography it barely deserves the title of sex scene, the encounter in the park between Will and Kitty is of interest. I was struck (not alone here, I'm sure) by the similarity between this tryst and the Pullman adventure of Kate and Binx in The Moviegoer, the site complications adding to the uncertainty, the lust compromised by the psychology. As an aside, let me follow up briefly on Rhonda's and Janet's observations about Rita and Shakespeare. If Kitty and Will are Kate and Binx, Rita is no Aunt Emily. I think she may be closer to Sam Yerger. I was especially taken with Percy's choice of Rita's Shakespeare selection, Sonnet 73, about the "Bare ruin's choirs/Where late the sweet birds sang." (p. 115) Is this hymn to decay and degradation a thematic hint from Percy?
Chapter 3.1, pp. 125-132. The voyage begins with a bus ride followed by the hitched ride from Forney Aiken.
Here begins the peripatetic part of the novel, the part in which travel and place become important. Many of you on this list are no doubt familiar with Jay Tolson's Pilgrim in the Ruins. He has offered (p. 306) a pointed and perspicacious observation on this aspect of the book: “Place clearly matters a great deal in this novel. It is crucial to the protagonist’s effort to come to terms with himself. Yet one of the novel’s ironic truths is that place—geographical and cultural—does not ultimately matter. Place is of ultimate importance only to those lost souls who hope that they can escape themselves, a vanity to which Will Barrett, like Percy at an earlier age, is in varying degrees attached. Yet to discover this truth one must first test the power of place, and that in large measure is what Will Barrett does throughout the novel.” Or as Seneca put it centuries earlier, Magis quis veneris quam quo interest, et ideo nulli loco addicere debemus animum. “[When you travel] it matters more what kind of person you are than where you go, and we therefore ought not to pledge our mind to any particular location.” Is Tolson right? Is the trip southward a voyage of self-discovery for Will? Or don't we yet have enough information to answer that question?
Chapter 3.2-3.3, pp. 132-149 This is the arrival of Will and Forney Aiken at the suburban "housing development" home of Mort Prince. So far, I think, through these three sections, Percy has given us straightforward narrative, getting from place to place, though--to repeat--I may be wrong. What struck me, and this is certainly an age-related note, is the connection of this chapter to a racial and sociological phenomenon, John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me. John Howard Griffin was a white journalist who secreted himself in New Orleans for a couple weeks late in 1959 to take the medical treatments necessary to turn nis skin black. He then traveled through five segregated states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas) and published his diary in 1961 under the title Black Like Me, There was a movie in 1964, as Percy was working on this novel. This section, the skin treatments of Aiken and the fight at Prince's house, emphasize the atmosphere of race relations at that time when the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were "new" legislation. Percy himself (Rhonda and Marcus would know this much better than I do) later subscribed to the politically directed motto "Fight The Stupids."
Just a few thoughts about a small section of an extraordinary book.
Chuck LowryBrooklyn, New York----------------------------------
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[percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3,
Charles Lowry, 06/20/2025
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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3,
Leonard, 06/22/2025
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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3,
RHONDA MCDONNELL, 06/26/2025
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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3,
lowry . charles, 06/26/2025
- Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3, Doug Brown, 06/26/2025
- Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3, RHONDA MCDONNELL, 06/26/2025
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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3,
lowry . charles, 06/26/2025
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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3,
RHONDA MCDONNELL, 06/26/2025
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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion/Chapter 2.6-Chapter 3.3,
Leonard, 06/22/2025
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