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

[RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>]

I’d like to start be referring to Lauren’s most recent post. In it she makes a great point: Percy is calling for “ALL OF US to look our own selves.”  In the same post, though, she also seems to urge us to not examine his work communally.  That, however, is contrary to Percy’s anthropology. The intersubjectivity of the communal experience is what he was after. So if we read the novel together, no matter how far apart we may be geographically, and discuss what in it speaks to us, what we each think he’s getting at, we can have that affirming moment, where we say, “Yes, yes, that is how it is with me, too!”  That co-celebration was Percy’s main goal.

In his essay, “Notes for a Novel about the End of the World,” Percy explains the novelists role: “The wounded man has a better view of the battle than those still shooting. The novelist is less like a prophet than he is like the canary that coal miners used to take down into the shaft to test the air. When the canary gets unhappy, utters plaintive cries, and collapses, it may be time for the miners to surface and think things over.”

So I turn my thoughts to the opening chapter, partly in light of our previous discussions:

The novel opens with Tom More above the battle, so to speak, and watching and waiting, like many of Percy’s protagonists.  Tom More is a beautifully flawed narrator, and I can’t help but see him in the mold of St. Augustine who prayed, “Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”  Tom admits, “My life is a longing, longings for women, for the Nobel Prize, for the hot bosky bite of bourbon whiskey, and other great heart-wrenching longings that have no name.” In fact, he dwells quite a bit on longing in this novel (and his others).  What is this longing all about?  Is it the sensual longings he identifies or is more hiding behind it so that women, bourbon, the Nobel Prize can’t fill it? 

Tom is unique in his society, being neither Left nor Knothead. Instead, he is the odd man out—the true believer who is also a scientist.  He may not be a “good” Catholic, yet, as he asserts, he believes. And his belief is not the watered down belief of Catholicism steeped in scientific humanism. No, he makes the point that he believes the mystery and miracle of it. Tom remembers, “The best of times were after mass on summer evenings when Samantha and I would walk home in the violet dusk, we having received Communion and I rejoicing afterwards, caring nought for my fellow Catholics but only for myself and Samantha and Christ swallowed, remembering what he promised me for eating him, that I would have life in me . . .”  At his present time, though, Tom is no longer taking Communion, which leads to the question: Despite his avowed belief, is Christ in him?  Certainly, God doesn’t rank particularly high on his priority list, coming after women, music, science, and whiskey.

On the list, a lot of discussion has been focused on Knotheads vis-a-vis the Tea Party.  But in this novel, it’s pretty clear that Tom More doesn’t belong to the liberals any more than he belongs to the conservatives.  I imagine that overall, the list leans liberal, so the tendency is to focus on the criticisms of the Knotheads.  But the liberals don’t fare any better in this novel, not from an objective (above the fighting) perspective.  The liberal entertainment—Homo Hijinks—is a pretty good prediction of the direction of contemporary entertainment (e.g., Shades of Gray and the rest of the mommy porn). And, in truth, everyone in the novel is racist. The liberals’ racism might be more subtle, but it is still present.  Is it better in its subtlety?

Most folks who have been commenting lately, whether liberal or conservative, want to claim Percy as being in their camp (if he were still with us).  I’m not so sure, in either case.  If Percy was anything like his character, Tom, he was somewhere in the middle, liberal on some issues and conservative on others.  Perhaps he was more concerned with the individual.  If the sundered selves of modern people could be mended, the rest of it might sort itself out. 

I’ll come to a close, though much more remains to be discussed—what about all of the dropouts in the swamp? What about Tom being the only doctor that will treat the dropouts? What about the vines? What about Charley Parker watching the news?

--Rhonda

"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