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

[kevin keough <kevinkeough710 AT gmail.com>]

Hello All,

I am brand new to the list.  I'm a 56 yo divorced clinical psychologist with two adult children living in Wilmington, Delaware.  I got turned on to WP in college and the bug bit.  I've read all of his non fiction and lots of fiction.

I haven't learned all the rules for the list yet but I thought I'd jump in with two thought about the Second Coming without knowing the page numbers.

The image-depiction of the young woman in the psychiatric hospital writing directions for an escape immediately following her shock treatment the following day has always been very evocative and powerful for me.  Many times I've written to myself instructions/guidance during a more lucid and together time to be read when I am lost in the craziness of life--very much like telling myself how to exit the craziness/nut hut in my mind when I find myself lost in the cosmos.   I've found this idea has intuitive appeal to patients I see who will write themselves their own directions for exiting craziness---written when they are in better spots.

The other major theme is Percy's discussion of non-suicides and ex-suicides.   I always felt quite at home with this observation.  It's brought me comfort.  Again,  I've found patients-especially those struggling with suicidal feelings find some solace in this view point.

So many other exceptional things about this book but I'll keep it short.  I will look to find where I introduce myself and make sure I am following directions properly.

It is very nice to be a part of this group of people.  Thank you for having me.

Kevin Keough

Dr. Kevin L. Keough 

215 South Bancroft Parkway

Wilmington, Delaware 19805

(W) 302.654.5075

(C)  302.650.4686

On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 11:12 AM, Jim Forest <jhforest AT gmail.com> wrote:

Janet, as always I appreciated your comments…

 

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

 

Nancy makes a little headway every day. She’s back to work (she’s a literary translator). Her current project is a set of previously untranslated letters written by Anne Frank when she was 13.

 

>>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.

 

I think you are right about the numbers but am not sure, in the many places where Percy comments negatively on the failures of Christianity, that Percy was setting out to demonstrate who killed the more people — Nazis, Communists, Moslems, Christians? — but was putting such sweeping declarations to show some of the reasons his protagonists (Will Barrett, Tom More) are estranged Christians. Christians whose main choices remind one of the Sermon on the Mount are perhaps not so numerous…

 

God knows a lot of people have been killed by Christians. The Fr Smiths (Thanatos Syndrome) are few and far between.

 

Jim

 

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On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 9:23 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

On Sep 6, 2016 9:04 AM, "Jim Forest" <jhforest AT gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks, Janet, for the last two contributions to the Second Coming discussion -- very thorough summaries and great quotes from the book. I had intended to respond to the first one sooner but domestic life has been disrupted by Nancy breaking her right arm; she was knocked down by an exuberant dog -- a Newfoundland of Viking descent -- while we were on vacation in Norway.

 

Re section V of The Second Coming (pages 122-199):

 

I am struck by how passive Will Barrett tends to be -- he says “the only time I knew what to do was when something bad happened to somebody. Disaster gave me leave to act.” (122) Then on the next page: “Something had given [Will] leave to live in the present … in the quiet center of himself…. Not once had he been present for his life.” (Later on -- p 153 -- we learn that he married Marion “because he pleased her so much.”) Janet quoted the haunting sentence that follows: "Is it possible for people to miss their lives in the same way one misses a plane?"

 

Then comes the great segment on funerals followed by this question: “Why is it that without death one misses one’s life?” (124) And on the next page: “How can it be that only with death and dying does the sharp quick sense of life return?”

 

There is an Eden-like aspect to Second Coming -- the paradise greenhouse -- but it’s Eden after the Fall. Eden with death. Eden -- but with the possibility of suicide. (How vividly Will’s Luger is described on p 131!)

 

There is Will’s realization is anger having been, up to now, the mainspring of his life. (133) “You were possessed by anger … which in the end you turned on yourself.” Later -- 171 -- Will asks the question: “Where does such rage come from? From the discovery that in the end the world yields only to violence, that only the violent bear it away, that short of violence all is in the end impotence?” These are thoughts that make suicide attractive.

 

As I read it, the book’s pivotal question is: ”Do you believe in God?” (136) Percy tucks this into a comic exchange with Episcopal priest Jack Curl, who finds it embarrassing: “How’s that?” “You know, God.”

 

It really is a life-or-death question for Will as it was for Percy. Then 45 pages later (181) we find Will has come up with a way (his cave quest, but as yet unrevealed to the reader) to force God’s hand -- to draw God out from behind the curtain or not show up, in which case demonstrating that there is nothing/noone behind the curtain. It’s nothing less than “one of the strangest schemes ever hit upon by the mind of man.” Will decides that his father’s suicide was wasted -- it failed to answer or even attempt to answer the “are You there?” question. Either Will will pry a yes out of the darkness of heaven or he will die of heaven’s silence. It’s “the ultimate scientific experiment…. I aim to settle the question of God once and for all.” (186)

 

Sadly Christians themselves, who “have killed off more people in recent centuries than all other people put together” (188), fail to prove anything for Will. (Great paragraphs follow on which are worse, the believers or the unbelievers. They are “two classes of maniacs.” 190)

 

“So it was that Will Barrett went mad.” (197)

 

It is a madness, however, that leads to the greenhouse rather than the madhouse…

 

I hope to carry on about pages 199 to 250 tomorrow or the next day.

 

Janet, I know you’re there. Anybody else?

 

Jim Forest

 

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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
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jim.forest1
 
Jim & Nancy Forest
Kanisstraat 5 / 1811 GJ Alkmaar / The Netherlands
 
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* Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org

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