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

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

I quite understand your confusion in all this. It is not cut and dried. Perhaps that is why so many like SloMo because he seems to have all the answers. But Percy understands that it is not easy. He went through many bouts of alcoholism and lapsing from his Catholicism and he finally realized, of course he was also older and mellowed, perhaps, that he had to go cold sober and go back To his Bunt and reach for G-d again.

The thing is so often what I consider good is what my friends do not. Look how I was attacked merely for my comment on America being a shining country to the world. 

But I try to stress to people that if we say, for example, Nazis are bad, without understanding that in the proper circumstances or with proper training or motivation, we could each easily do very bad things, and it is only that realization that can help us not to do them, I am met with blank stares. That is why I don't like Athol Fugard. He makes his audience proud of itself for its good morals. I prefer the play Good by C.P. Taylor, I think, which makes us identify with the Nazis - now THAT was scary. And I think a bit what Percy was getting at.

I am rambling too. I don't know anything about semiotics and I think that is what you are referring to when  you talk about Percy wanting to know how we think or how our intentions change. I know I watched my liberal friends change from reasonable people I disagreed with and who disagreed with me but we could have discussions, to angry intolerable, intolerant disagreeable people after the 2000 election. We cannot quietly say one word to each other. I am stunned at the change in them. And I would love to know how it happened so easily. People who loved Israel now find fault with things they would have been furious with others who found these faults before. (baD syntax  but...) I have seen people change from nice to ugly and I hate it. They are influenced by blogs to change in horrid ways. Of course that is what they think of me.

I believe Percy is trying to get us to understand in the end that with all the conflict and evil, there is a way for each of us. His excesses lead to calm in each novel.

I can't help you because I don't know philosophy or scholarship. I am just a reader.

But I love Percy so there must be something he is saying to me.

I don't mind going on in this vein unless you think it is fruitless.

Janet

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From: Lauren Stacy Berdy <lauren.stacy.berdy AT gmail.com>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: [percy-l] inquiry P 119 LITR

Yes, Janet I saw your comments.
( once again I am apologizing to the group that I am off the on the side of the road  and not onto the particular thread/ tangent ) however, I mean well..................

" a fault in the soul's terrain"
this is the phase that I had trouble with..........
and your explanation or examples didn't get me over to the to the other bank .
Intellectual and insightful explanations and other examples from Dr. Percy writings just won't do here or father Smith in Thanatos  etc.

He was and we are still trying to figure out how a persons intentions change?

Leroy is his kind of example. Leroy has different meanings for different things that are cast in front of him.
"But the terror comes from his goodness  and lies underneath."
and here is the big problem.
How do you catch yourself thinking about your actions?
I "mean to do something means I intend to do it...... BUT something happens the self trips over itself it gets caught up in  conditoning. ( runaway loop)
Leroy has a previous perception about black people.....his choices are determined by the totality of significance  at that moment.
Percy says that ordinary he is good goodness resides inside of him
But then what happens in another moment he abstracts and shifts to thought?  How does the bad intention get modified???????????????????????????
the point is that one acts thru intention and there is no seperation of the mental and the psychical. He would fix a tire for Tom but not for "bantus" "the other"

you see I believe with all my heart that Percy was trying to get at how we make new meanings..........the brain holds on to the old meanings,how does the shift happen?
its not about choice it happens with perception and realization and that changes the reality..........social change requires a different totally accepted meaning. Like autocracy to democracy. Meanings become fixed hence all the tribes in the book. It's meaningless conflict

" some fault in the soul's terrrain?????"  I don't believe so I often wonder if Percy did?

I am sorry that this is messy with thoughts but it is a messy conscientiousness isn't it?

Lauren Stacy Berdy
(614) 314-4162 cell
(754) 816-7508
Lauren.Stacy.Berdy AT gmail.com
LaurenBrdy AT aol.com

LaurenStacyBerdy.com

On 7/15/2014 8:06 AM, janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com wrote:

Lauren,

Did you see my comments on this section? It answers your question about where the terror came from paragraph.

Did that help you?

Janet

I apologize for not responding to the specific excellent inquires that have been placed into out laps . I am looking forward  to reading the responses. 
If I can I will add something into the pot. ( perhaps I am not playing by the rules? I am sure......... someone will let me know)

I am re reading the book  electronically.

I don't know how to find the specific chapter. Yes, it is a sad commentary on my technical skills. I have all the other books save for LITR which I lent out long ago.......
All of this is to say that I might be a head of the reading group
again, I am sure someone will let me know.

Recently I came upon a paragraph in LITR  P 119
 I  wanted to explore with others?
 I am not sure how to understand it?
However, I believe that it is important in understanding and not only Dr. More as well as his creator Dr. Percy .


We are in the " the little Napoleon" with Leroy and the Tom.( again in my version page 119)

and I quote
"Where did the terror come from? Not from the violence; violence gives release from terror. Not from Leroy's wrongness, for if he were altogether wrong , an evil man,the matter would be simple and no cause for terror. No, it came from Leroy's goodness, that he is a decent, sweet natured man who would help you if you needed help. go out of his way and bind up a strangers wounds. No, the terror comes from the goodness and what lies beneath, some fault in the soul's terrain so deep that all is well on top, evil grins like good, but something shears and tears deep down and the very ground stirs beneath one's feet."

I haven't formed a question although a few are quietly bubbling up. Don Giovanni is about evil and Dr. More knows many of the arias.
I believe this is part of the scented trail that Percy is leading us on away from the  settled campsite of how we see the very ground that we walk on?

Once again thank you for this exploration






  

"

-- 
Lauren Stacy Berdy

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