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

[Lauren Stacy Berdy <lauren.stacy.berdy AT gmail.com>]

The reader as much as the writer creates the vision in their own mind

If the process of creation does not happen in the readers mind is not reenacted

If the subterranean links and connections  do not link

The work fails

For this reader Born a Jew Dr Percy wants us alert like one of his hawks

His words give us a renewal and a resuscitation for our own lives

Whitman too was religious ( okay a religion not made by a mind) he helped us with our emotional evolution

Dr Percy adds to that self generating order

That creative struggle that all great authors ask of Their readers

I read that article twice and I am sorry that he is wresting so with his demons

catholic or otherwise. 

 

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 22, 2015, at 12:14 PM, Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com> wrote:

I so hope the world will take him at his word when Mr. Giraldi denies being a Catholic. Otherwise, people might mistake his interests and concerns for those of a real Catholic novelist. As a secular novelist, Mr. Giraldi seems most interested in how his life has prepared him to be an artiste, his boyhood Catholicism being one of those preparations: "An upbringing in the Church has, I suspect and hope, outfitted me well as a storyteller." He likes the instincts Catholicism gave him--but for the purpose of storytelling and not for the purpose of apprehending and conforming oneself to the truth. He even likes there to be a quasi-religious vision to fiction, as long as it is sufficiently amorphous: "A novel should indeed be a groping after some form of the metaphysical, a benediction to unseen powers, the upholding of the mysterium tremendum, those insistent inklings of the numinous."

But the Catholic novelist is most interested in objective reality, and he sees his role as artist to be one of rendering that reality as well as he can. Obviously some novels (and novelists) are better than others, but the vision of the Catholic novelist is neither narcissistic nor subjective (Nor is it proselytizing, as Giraldi claims with regard to Percy and Greene in particular.). No, the Catholic novelist's vision is of something outside of himself, corresponding to divine revelation. His characters may be at any level of understanding (or rejecting) that reality, but the (Catholic) novelist himself has no such freedom. He knows what he knows, and the world he creates, in which his characters live and breathe, must bear a close resemblance to the real one. But this includes immaterial as well as material reality. Mr. Giraldi is fine with being exact about material reality ("my books are flesh-obsessed"), but he wants to keep the immaterial vague, subjective, fuzzy. That's why he's not a Catholic ... and why he should therefore remain silent about the concerns of Catholic writers.

Michael Larson

On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 6:35 AM, <percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to
        percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
        http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
        percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
        percy-l-owner AT lists.ibiblio.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. 2016 SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE ON CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE -
      Walker Percy Centennial - Call for Papers (Henry Mills)
   2. Re: A Good Stamp is Hard to Find (Jonathan Potter)
   3. Confessions of A Catholic Novelist: When water, bread, and
      blood aren't just water, bread and blood - William Giraldi
      (Henry Mills)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2015 09:05:40 -0400
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] 2016 SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE ON CHRISTIANITY AND
        LITERATURE - Walker Percy Centennial - Call for Papers
Message-ID: <557C2AA4.1040800 AT gmail.com">557C2AA4.1040800 AT gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"

The following is a Call for Papers Announcement. For more information,
contact Rich Gray (rgray AT montreat.edu <mailto:rgray AT montreat.edu>).

**

***
Walker Percy Centennial:****Pilgrimage in Literature*

2016 SOUTHEAST CONFERENCE ON CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE

*April 7-9, 2016*
Montreat College, Montreat, NC 28757

Keynoters: *Farrell O?Gorman*, Belmont Abbey College

*Jim Wildeman*, Covenant College, emeritus

Like Binx Bolling in Walker Percy?s first novel /The Moviegoer,
/literary characters often seek relationship with the God of the Bible.
They feel detached from affairs in the material world.  Pilgrims sense a
call from God to pursue him in spite of the unbelief surrounding them.
Essays will be considered from a variety of authors. Topics should
pursue the intersection of faith and literature.  Creative writing
presentations are welcome.

Undergraduate Research essays are invited; the Thursday evening session
is devoted to them.


Please submit completed essays to Rich Gray (rgray AT montreat.edu
<mailto:rgray AT montreat.edu>)
by January 10, 2016




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/attachments/20150613/5d567519/attachment-0001.html>

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 09:32:59 -0700
From: Jonathan Potter <jopomojo AT gmail.com>
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
        <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] A Good Stamp is Hard to Find
Message-ID:
        <CALpVE-4JnfLF9H9E7RcoovDKxkV8sHWp_gaopxt13C6H_oAXzA AT mail.gmail.com">CALpVE-4JnfLF9H9E7RcoovDKxkV8sHWp_gaopxt13C6H_oAXzA AT mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Someone at the Korrektiv blog has created an enhanced version of the
Flannery O'Connor stamp:

http://korrektivpress.com/2015/06/lets-try-that-again/

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 1:16 PM, Jim Forest <jhforest AT gmail.com> wrote:

>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/a-good-stamp-is-hard-to-find.html?mabReward=CTM&moduleDetail=recommendations-2&action="click&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&configSection=article&isLoggedIn=true&src=recg&pgtype=article
> A Good Stamp Is Hard to Find
>
> By LAWRENCE DOWNES / NY TIMES / JUNE 4, 2015
>  Photo
>   Credit United States Postal Service
>
> English majors, say hooray: Flannery O?Connor is on a postage stamp. It
> comes out Friday and costs 93 cents.
>
> It?s a pretty picture. She wears a simple top with a jewel neckline, and
> pearls. Her pink porcelain face, framed in a 1940s bob, glows with the
> barest hint of a how-do-you-do smile.
>
> Wait ? what?s Betty Crocker doing on Flannery?s stamp?
>
> This stamp does not, to my eyes, show Flannery O?Connor, the 20th-century
> master of the short story, the ?hermit novelist? who fused her art and life
> as a Southerner and a Roman Catholic with stories that are shocking,
> hilarious and often bloody. The one who lived with her mother in
> Milledgeville, Ga., and raised peafowl. Who got sick and died young, of
> lupus, in 1964. Who gazed at the sin-stricken world through cat-eye glasses
> that are as much her visual signature as Hemingway?s beard or Frida?s
> eyebrow.
>
> This stamp shows the artist as a very young woman, barely 20 years old.
> It?s based on a photo of her as an undergraduate at Georgia State College
> for Women. Her oeuvre then amounted to cartoons and stories for the college
> magazine. Everything else in her dazzling career ? the Iowa Writers?
> Workshop, the artists? retreat Yaddo, ?Wise Blood,? ?A Good Man Is Hard to
> Find? ? lay ahead.
> Photo
>   Flannery O'Connor beneath her self portrait in June 1962. Credit Joe
> McTyre/Atlanta Journal-Constitution
>
> The image has rattled some O?Connor admirers. (Facebook
> <https://www.facebook.com/Andalusiafarmpage>: ?This is all wrong. They
> glamour-shot her. She looks like she has a bad case of pink eye.? )
>
> The United States Postal Service gave this job to an art director, who
> hired a freelance artist. I spoke with both of them, and learned that
> neither knew much about O?Connor, but they did their best with the images
> they had. The artist told me he had read one of her novels in college. He
> knew O?Connor had raised peacocks, so he framed her with feathers. The art
> director remembered that her work was ?unsettling,? and that she was a
> Catholic.
>
> I can?t blame either of them for deciding on this striking portrait as the
> best fit for their tiny canvas, but I wish they and the Postal Service had
> produced a stamp that was more recognizably the grown-up Flannery, and
> contained some taste of her strange and majestic artistic vision.
>
> I know she does not present an automatic illustrative equation, like
> mustache + steamboat = Mark Twain. But a better choice was staring the
> Postal Service in the face: a painting made by the author herself, a
> self-portrait from 1953. She is wearing a yellow straw hat, holding a
> devilish-looking pheasant and looking straight at you, baleful and
> brilliant, as if she could smell your stupidity. It is gorgeous and jagged
> and honest and perfect.
>
> ?The self-portrait was made ten years ago,? O?Connor wrote to a friend,
> ?after a very acute siege of lupus. I was taking cortisone, which gives you
> what they call a moon-face, and my hair had fallen out to a large extent
> from the high fever, so I looked pretty much like the portrait. When I
> painted it I didn?t look either at myself in the mirror or at the bird. I
> knew what we both looked like.?
>
> A version of this editorial appears in print on June 5, 2015, on page A26
> of the New York edition with the headline: A Good Stamp Is Hard to Find.
> --
> *two new books*:
> *Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment*:
> www.jimandnancyforest.com/2014/07/loving-our-enemies/
> *Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins:*
> www.jimandnancyforest.com/2015/04/saint-nicholas-and-the-nine-gold-coins/
> <http://jimandnancyforest.com/2015/04/saint-nicholas-and-the-nine-gold-coins/>
>
> Jim & Nancy web site: www.jimandnancyforest.com
> Photo albums: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/
>
> *Jim & Nancy Forest*
> Kanisstraat 5 / 1811 GJ Alkmaar / The Netherlands
>
> * * *
>
> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/
>
> * Manage Your Membership:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
>
> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org
>
> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/attachments/20150616/d1256539/attachment-0001.html>

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 07:35:28 -0400
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] Confessions of A Catholic Novelist: When water,
        bread, and blood aren't just water, bread and blood - William Giraldi
Message-ID: <5587F300.6070206 AT gmail.com">5587F300.6070206 AT gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"

Dear Percy-L:

For those wishing to read an interesting, if not provocative essay
byWilliam Giraldi -- novelist and contributing editor for /The New
Republic -- /on his views of Catholicism and novel-writing from
hiscontemporary perspective, you may wish to consider his below essay
just published online.

Entitled "Confessions of A Catholic Novelist: When water, bread, and
blood aren't just water, bread and blood," Percy, O'Connor, and Graham
Greene are each considered and represented in their perspectives with
numerous quotes and discussion by Giraldi.

In addition, given the recent postal stamp "controversy" with O'Connor,
the essay features a fascinating photograph of her standing with one of
her peacocks, a photo worth enjoying.

SPOILER ALERT: Giraldi's essay is both affirming and non-affirming of
its treated subjects.  Perhaps some list members would like to respond
for the benefit of the Percy-L community?

See: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122078/confessions-catholic-novelist

Best,

Henry Mills
Percy-L Administrator
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20150622/47268d0b/attachment.html>

------------------------------

Subject: Digest Footer

_______________________________________________
Percy-L mailing list
Percy-L AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l


------------------------------

End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 114, Issue 3
***************************************

* Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/

* Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l

* Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org

* Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy