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percy-l - [percy-l] LITR Slow Read - Chapter 4 - "July Third"

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

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  • From: Henry Mills <wppdirector AT gmail.com>
  • To: Percy-L AT lists.ibiblio.org:Literary and Philosophical Discussion <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [percy-l] LITR Slow Read - Chapter 4 - "July Third"
  • Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 21:42:39 -0400

Thanks for your great comments, Greg.

I'm restarting this thread with a chapter heading for the subject line, so all can follow along more easily. Not all list members are able to follow discussion in "real time."

Best,
Henry Mills
Percy-L Administrator


On 7/21/14, 11:56 PM, Plemmons, Gregory wrote:
Hi, y'all,

Below are some thoughts I had on reading this section:

Percy’s July Third section takes place almost exclusively within the confines
of the medical school. After a relatively brief and seemingly uneventful
section with Tom’s mother, action/machination returns, this time on an stage,
which is often a useful device itself (the play within a play...)

I wondered about Percy’s choice of the Pit as the setting for this section.
What do others think? He seems to use it to great effect here. Such
amphitheaters are still fairly common in educational settings. How much of
what we consider education is entertainment, and vice versa? Does it matter?
Did everyone else find Mr. Ives to be quite a sympathetic character? The
public inquisition to which he is subjected here is quite humiliating, and
yet while Tom initially seems sympathetic, defending Mr. Ive’s defecation and
mutism, how much is done out of empathy, and self-recognition? How much is
done for spectacle? Tom is quite the critic of how gladiatorial the whole
guise of academic “sportsmanship” pretends to be—and a brilliant
satirist--yet I feel finds himself completely swept up in the game, at times.
Is it humanly possible to remain objective and aware of the Game? (and what
would Percy think of Dr. Phil…)

At one point (p. 219) Tom says “students are, if the truth be known, a bad
lot.” Does he believe this? In this section, the teachers act just as
juvenile—is there hope for future generations, or are we essentially trapped
in the human condition? I keep thinking of the young hippie couple with the
baby, on Honey Island…are they lost, or simply Hope?

At one point, Tom has a fleeting moment of insight—“the thing to do, it
occurs to me halfway down into the pit, is to concern myself with the patient
and what ails him, and forget the rest”—which I think is a shining moment of
grace—but it seems to me that the challenge is how to forget the rest—is it
humanly possible, without the Gift? Without Grace?

Although Percy has never been pegged as a traditional Southern writer, at
least in the Faulknerian sense of place, I’m always struck by his keen
awareness of the nuances of each region and his depiction of Mr. Ives
here—Mr. Ives seems curiously displaced, yet is most likely typical Everyman
for your average 1960’s middle-class Southerner. Ives, we’re told, is from
Tennessee, but lived for forty years in Hartford, Connecticut as an insurance
controller before his wife died (shades of Doris/Catherine?
self-identification?), and he desires to return home to Tennessee (aptly,
Lost Cove--Lost Self?). I’m sure whole essays have been written on this
choice, and What is Home, and what is Self (as someone pointed out earlier,
the Mall-ification of the South)…but it seemed at least worth a comment here.
Can he truly go home? Was he there to begin with?

Mr. Ives: “his monkey eyes snap”—I couldn’t help but chuckle, and wonder about Percy’s
word choice here, having spent the weekend not too far from Dayton, Tennessee—home of
the Monkey Trial—(which is not too far from Lost Cove, either—if any of you are
wondering, which is a real, not fictional place). Both of those locales are fairly
close to Sewanee, where Percy's family had property, I'm told, and where he spent some
time. Nearly a hundred years later, evolutionary biology is still being debated here
(and nationally) and I continue to be fascinated by the constant intersection/conflict
of science and faith. Interestingly, of note, here in Tennessee a rebuttal
“play/musical” has been written to counterbalance “Inherit The Wind”--entitled
"Inherit The Truth" (and the Creation Museum up the road in Kentucky is
erecting a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark). At least in my neck of the woods, it seems
we need Percy’s voice more than ever…the center cannot hold...

Greg












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