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

["janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com" <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>]

Here is a good review on Amazon and three comments, two of them mine:

65 of 72 people found the following review helpful

 One of the Greatest American Novels of the Twentieth Century, August 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Moviegoer (Paperback)

The novel takes place over the course of one week, Mardi Gras week, in New Orleans, and concerns Binx Bolling, the eponymous moviegoer, who will turn thirty in the course of the novel.

Binx is also the narrator of the novel, and it's his voice that gives the book its unique humor, irony, and poignance; a plot synopsis does not do justice to the complexity and compellingness of this influential novel. Binx, a dreamy stockbroker and scion of an old patriarchal New Orleans family, is (he tells us confidentially) on a search. The nature of Binx's search is only vaguely understood by the reader, but Binx himself seems to know exactly what he's talking about when he uses his own peculiar vocabulary to describe aspects of the search (words like "repetition" and "rotation" are specialized jargon in Binx's idiom, used to refer to specific phenomenon.) Percy's great achievement with this novel is handling the subtle variations of distance between the reader and Binx: Is he an entirely trustworthy narrator? Is he demented, dishonest, insane? Is he putting us on? Or does he distrust the reader? Does he know we're watching him? Binx slyly takes his part in the affairs of his family and community, all the while commenting sardonically on various aspects of modern American spirituality, all the while conducting his "search," which leads him to cross paths with his equally insane cousin, Kate, and to incur the wrath of his aristocratic old aunt.

It's a very funny, very moving, ultimately heartbreaking book, for we are never sure what has become of Binx and his search. Was his spirit defeated, or does he merely withdraw to conduct his search further outside of the reader's eye? His and Kate's love story, if that's what it is, is tragic, and Binx himself might be a tragic figure--Percy complicates the question mightily.

This is a great novel, my favorite of all novels, and it has influenced everyone from Larry McMurtry to Frederick Exley to charlatans like Richard Ford, whose "The Sportswriter" is a blatant ripoff of Percy's book. The cultural commentary of the novel (which was written in the fifties) could have been written yesterday; pay special attention to his aunt's stunning speech near the novel's end when she imperiously indicts the entire American value system. It's a glorious swan song and one of the best chewing-out scenes every written.

If they tell me I can take one book to the moon with me, this is the book I'll take.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Thank you for your feedback.

Report abuse | Permalink

Comments

You are tracking comments by e-mail Cancel

Tracked by 1 customer

Sort: Oldest first | Newest first

Showing 1-3 of 3 posts in this discussion

Your initial post: Jul 6, 2010 6:02:25 PM PDT

honey says:

Yours is a lovely review. I'll add mine after I reread and think about the book. But having just finished my first reading of it, I love what you had to say. Thank you.

Edit this post | Permalink
5 of 5 people think this post adds to the discussion.

---

Posted on Jun 9, 2014 9:48:51 AM PDT

John Martin says:

I had the opposite view of this book. It is a boring account of worthless, arrogant Southern people. Aunt Emily's diatribe is a clear example of the false sense of superiority these people felt. As I said in my review, reading this book is like overturning a rock and seeing the vermin crawling around. I prefer books that are uplifting and promote the human spirit.

You just replied with a later post

Reply to this post

Permalink | Report abuse | Ignore this customer
Do you think this post adds to the discussion?   

---

1 new post since your last visit

Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Jun 9, 2014 12:12:49 PM PDT

honey says:

If you are able to read The Moviegoer and not feel uplifted, I am sorry for you.
The Epilogue alone makes the reader smile and sigh with wonder at the achievement of this unusual good novel.
The book is hilarious and thoughtful at the same time. How can that be bad? You are not reading a pulp novel. You are reading a book about life's ultimate mysteries and how one searches for meaning. Percy makes his conclusions a reach for   G-d's grace and the necessity to care for someone outside of ourselves. The theme comes in the final scene of the main novel, with the black man coming out of the church on Ash Wednesday.
As you read Aunt Emily's rant notice how it is a clear rebuke of Binx's wasteful dreaming and her rage at his not growing up yet, but at the same time it is a representation of a particular attitude of a particular type. An author does not have to idealize his characters or make them lovable to you. He just has to make them worth reading about so you can have an interesting journey.
But the book engages, as you read it, with movies, a young person's foolishness in his search, a connection to his cousin and that gorgeous relationship with his half brother which leads Binx toward his good conclusion.
From the dung Beetle in the beginning to that trolley ride of his cousin in the Epilogue, a journey is made with wonderful stops along the way full of entertainment and enrichment.