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

["honeyjbc1 ." <honeyjbc AT gmail.com>]

Dear Jim,

I adored your detailed response and I wish that more people were in on this discussion.

All that you said made me so happy. Look how Walker Percy can connect us from such different backgrounds! And notice how we may highlight different things - the proof of a great author.

Next week I am going to attempt the next portion of the reading. At least we will finish the book here. I do hope that if no one is joining us, at least there are readers to enjoy this.

Because of logistical problems with my Yahoo mail on the List, I changed to Gmail.

My nickname is Honey.

But I am

Janet Cantor

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:50 AM, Jim Forest <jhforest AT gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks honeyjbc1 (sorry, not sure of your name) for the recent posting. Also apologies for being out of the loop recently -- Nancy and I were perched on the edge of a fjord in Norway for two weeks staying with friends. More or less off the map.

 

You wrote:

 

>> Chapter three ends with, "He remembered everything." Chapter four begins, "She remembered nothing."

 

There is a solid click as these chapter connect.

 

>> We are getting inside Allison's reality more now as we get a description of what she must feel like in her mental illness.

She thinks to herself that when she utters words, they don't seem worth uttering. She wonders if they have meanings. Others are easier with words than she is. But already she is beginning to understand that the euphemisms people use often mean the opposite of what they say.

Percy's interest in how we communicate is an important part of this book.

 

Isn’t part of Allison’s “illness/wellness” that she hears and uses words so carefully, so attentively?

 

>> She has chosen the greenhouse for her abode. She goes about figuring out how to clean it up to make it livable. As she handles things, she begins to remember how they were part of her past.

 

As I read the greenhouse pages, it often resonates with the Garden of Eden though no sign of the tree of knowledge or the serpent.

 

Adam and Eve were charged with naming the items of creation -- naming things is, as Percy says over and over again, part of what makes us unique.

 

>> A dog who is on his own joins her.

 

And the dog becomes something of a therapist for Allison. Also a protector.

 

>> Now the scene changes to what happened before she arrived here. She was in the institution and her parents were coming to see her and to talk to the doctor. Something is afoot.

Her lack of socializing with others causes the doctor to think she needs another treatment.

When she used to be home with her parents, her father could not hide his disappointment in her. Her mother, on the other hand, "refused to let her fail" - ever the optimist.

Seeing her parents all dressed up when they came to visit Allison figured they were just passing through. "The two of them blew in like tropical birds." They talked about Will Barrett. Obviously they are going to the engagement party.

Allison thinks, "Talk about me."

 

But it seems neither parent actually loves their daughter. Both have made their sudden appearance only because Allison has inherited property worth a fortune which they want to control and cash in on. It’s people in general but Allison’s parents in particular who are the root of her troubles. "Rather than marry and have a life like her mother, she’d rather join the navy and see the world. Why is a home the best place and also the worst? How can the best place become the worst place? What is a home? A home is a place, any place, any building, where one sinks into one’s self and finds company waiting. Company? Who’s company? oneself? somebody else? That’s the problem. The problem is not the house. People are the problem." (p 242)

 

>> …. And this is when the idea was hatched that we learned about earlier in the story. Allison knew she had to plan her escape. And that is when she wrote it all down as we saw at the beginning.

 

An escape not only from the asylum but from the control of mom and dad.

 

>> Now we are back to the greenhouse. Will returns. Somehow Allison feels comfortable with him. The way they communicate is charming to read.

 

Charming indeed! In his own craziness, he is perfectly attuned to Allison’s inventive use of language, her innate poetry, her playfulness with words. (Allison: "The helping is not helping me.")

 

>> …."White showed in the smoothed-out crow's feet" of her father. In Thanatos Syndrome there is the same image which is linked to birds flying and earlier in this book we also have birds swooping.

>> I loved the end of page 113 where Will confesses he tends to fall down and she says I tend to pick things up. This so charmingly evidences how each one will be the perfect fit for the other.

 

I’m grateful for the threads of connection you make with other WP books and between chapters in SC.

 

>> The sunlight glints on Will's forehead and his hair. Sun reflects off of objects throughout the Percy novels.

>> I asked Jay Tolson about this and he gave me a lovely response:

>> ...The light reflections? Hard to determine authorial intent, but reflected light suggests soul to me. That it is reflected means that the soul is dependent on the source of that light. Whether Percy intended it or not, was aware of it or not, the fact is that these reflected lights are everywhere, speaking to us at a subliminal level, suggests that Percy was showing that we are not autonomous creatures but dependent on the source of our being.

 

A light went on within me as I read that. One more thank you!

 

Re Jay Tolson, I just finished reading his biography of WP. A remarkable book. A treasure.

 

Friendly greetings,

 

Jim Forest

 

* * *

On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 11:11 PM, honeyjbc1 . <honeyjbc AT gmail.com> wrote:

Chapter three ends with, "He remembered everything."

Chapter four begins, "She remembered nothing."

We are getting inside Allison's reality more now as we get a  description of what she must feel like in her mental illness.

She thinks to herself that when she utters words, they don't seem worth uttering. She wonders if they have meanings. Others are  easier with words than she is. But already she is beginning to understand that the euphemisms people use often mean the opposite of what they say. 

Percy's interest in how we communicate is an important part of this book.

She has chosen the greenhouse for her abode. She goes about figuring out how to clean it up to make it livable. As she handles things, she begins to remember how they were part of her past.

A dog who is on his own joins her. 

Now the scene changes to what happened before she arrived here. She was in the institution and her parents were coming to see her and to talk to the doctor. Something is afoot.

Her lack of socializing with others causes the doctor to think she needs another treatment.

 When she used to be home with her parents, her father could not hide his disappointment in her. Her mother, on the other hand, "refused to let her fail" - ever the optimist.

Seeing her parents all dressed up when they came to visit Allison figured they were just passing through. "The two of them blew in like tropical birds." They talked about Will Barrett. Obviously they are going to the engagement party. 

Allison thinks, "Talk about me." 

Her parents had two different ideas for Allison. Her father wanted her to remain under the doctor's care here. And her mother wanted to take Allison home to live in a carriage house on their property. The doctor thinks she is not ready to go home. Mom thinks the only thing wrong with Allison is that she is sensitive. Both Mom and Dad are not taken with the Doctor's suggestion that they come up to participate in some family sessions. They decide to continue this discussion and allow Allison to remain alone in the parlor.

Allison listens in and learns that her "Aunt Sally" who was not her aunt but a friend of her aunt, liked her because she always listened to her and no one else would. Sally left Allison her property. Allison takes four hundred dollars from her father's wallet which he had left in his jacket in the parlor.

And this is when the idea was hatched that we learned about earlier in the story. Allison knew she had to plan her escape. And that is when she wrote it all down as we saw at the beginning.

Now we are back to the greenhouse. Will returns. Somehow Allison feels comfortable with him. The way they communicate is charming to read.

 He sees the stove in an awkward position and offers to help her move it. But she prefers to do it herself. "The helping is not helping me." He makes some suggestions to help her move it herself.

Some things I liked:

The phrase - "Down stone steps and into root smelling dark."

She cleans out the greenhouse which has wild roots and things growing through windows. It reminded me of the vines growing through the floor and into the house in LITR. Only here the chaos is being made more orderly.

"White showed in the smoothed-out crow's feet" of her father. In Thanatos Syndrome there is the same image which is linked to birds flying and earlier in this book we also have birds swooping.

I loved the end of page 113 where Will confesses he tends to fall down and she says I tend to pick things up. This so charmingly evidences how each one will be the perfect fit for the other.

The sunlight glints on Will's forehead and his hair. Sun reflects off of objects throughout the Percy novels. 

I asked Jay Tolson about this and he gave me a lovely response:

...The light reflections?  Hard to determine authorial intent, but reflected light suggests soul to me.  That it is reflected means that the soul is dependent on the source of that light.  Whether Percy intended it or not, was aware of it or not, the fact is that these reflected lights are everywhere, speaking to us at a subliminal level, suggests that Percy was showing that we are not autonomous creatures but dependent on the source of our being.

Then I read Brian Jobe's essay in the book from Loyola's  celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Moviegoer, and wrote this to Dr. Jobe about his essay:

...[You say] There is a mention of clearing which is lichtung which is important to Heidegger because of the word's connections to licht, light as in light of the sun, and liecht, as in lightness or weightlessness, and lichten as in lifting of fog or darkness. 

This goes on and the paragraph ends in how it provides illumination for the reader.  

The clearing of Heidegger is a State of Being that has become illuminated, [you say] here. This paragraph connected a lot of dots for me.

I also loved that in this essay Jobe says that "Percy will recreate this sense of the clearing at the end of all of his works".

 This validates the way I read the way Percy ends his novels.

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just out:

The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers:
http://jimandnancyforest.com/2016/06/root-of-war-is-fear/

recent 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/

Books in print: www.jimandnancyforest.com/books/
Jim & Nancy web site: www.jimandnancyforest.com
Photo albums: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/albums
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Jim & Nancy Forest
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