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

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

Dear David,

So far we have attempted the slow read in the summer.

I love Milan Kundera. His Book of Laughter and Forgetting  should be required reading these days. His The Joke also is relevance, inc.

He tackles lots of my perspectives.

De Lillo does not speak to me. I know that is a minority voice these days. He seems to be the flavor of the times.

Percy is the most enduring for me.

Rhonda said, "...I've read perceptive analysis on ISIS, for instance, that indicates that the leaders are not believers so much as they recognize that faith can become a powerful weapon when wielded by leaders, and that weapon can be used for evil as well as righteousness. Certainly it's a lesson history has shown us time and again... "

Very true, Rhonda. I think Percy enjoys poking fun at phony faith. Almost as much as he enjoys bringing his readers home to faith. 

Janet

I strikes me funny that I, an ordinary reader, have been the analyzer in chief this time. There are so many of you who have more important things to say and I miss you. But thank you Rhonda and David and Jim and Nancy. Very much appreciated.

 

From: Beck, David A <dabeck AT iupui.edu>
Date: Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 10:32 PM
Subject: Re: [percy-l] the slow read of The Second Coming
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>

Ditto. Like Rhonda, I've been buried this semester. I agreed to do an independent study on Milan Kundera, with a really good student (I was hoping she might select Percy. I gave her the options of Percy, DeLillo, or Kundera, and she picked Kundera.) And then one of my colleagues became ill and they spread his work out among some of us. So this semester is a crazy one. I have been reading with interests the posts by Janet and Jim.

Please keep them coming. Maybe next semester--with a promised course release--I'll be able to participate, with another book.

-David

David Beck
Senior Lecturer
English Department
Indiana University and Purdue University at Indianapolis
425 University Boulevard, CA 343-E
Indianapolis, IN 46202
317-278-2550

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From: Percy-L <percy-l-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org> on behalf of RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2016 6:38 PM
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
Subject: Re: [percy-l] the slow read of The Second Coming

 

Janet, Jim, and Nancy,

I've so appreciated your comments on Second Coming. I don't know about the rest of the list, but I have been utterly buried in work. The good news is that two of the projects that have me buried are Percy related. More news on those if/ when appropriate. Thanks for soldiering on. 

Best wishes for good healing, Nancy!

Rhonda

PS -- Janet, I agree and would add that religious belief is often manipulated to lead to killing, whether by Christians, Muslims, or others of any stripe. I've read perceptive analysis on ISIS, for instance, that indicates that the leaders are not believers so much as they recognize that faith can become a powerful weapon when wielded by leaders, and that weapon can be used for evil as well as righteousness. Certainly it's a lesson history has shown us time and again. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 9, 2016, at 12:24 PM, honeyjbc1 . <honeyjbc AT gmail.com> wrote:

I hope Nancy's arm heals well and quickly and doesn't hold her back too much.

You quote Percy saying that Christians have killed more people in recent centuries that all others put together.This is a fallacy and a pet peeve of mine. True Christians have done a lot of killing. But if you count all of the killing throughout time since Christians have killed infidels of all stripes, it doesn't make a dent in the tens of millions who have died at the hands of G-dless Nazis or Communists. If you want to see deaths calculated in tens of millions and certainly well over a hundred million, you have to go to the real champions, those people who decide they are G-d and who make it illegal to worship anyone, let alone any G-d before them. It is why I try to tell people that atheism is not acceptable. We need G-d for conscience.

But pet peeve aside, welcome aboard and I do wish we could be less lonely here.

Janet