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  • From: "janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com" <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: percy lists <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [percy-l] chapter four
  • Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2024 16:32:08 +0000 (UTC)

As before, I am going to insert my comments inside of your letter, Leonard, in color.

What you have given us is exceptional! All you have to say and ask - it is all stupendous. I won't answer or comment on every question because I don't know many things or because I am mainly concerned more with some you reference than others. But I must say all that you prepared for us here is so excellent. Thank you.
Janet Cantor


Dear Percy Projectors:


I have to confess, when Mr. Mills asked me if I’d like to lead the discussion 

of Chapter Four, my first reaction was, “Oh no, there goes my Little Way!”


But I figured I could still fit in my re-runs of “Perry Mason” and my obligatory cat duties. I’m not interested in NBC’s Olympic coverage, anyhow 

(cf. my Letter to the Editor forthcoming in the Washington Post).


I admit I was flattered, and intimidated, and I hope my attempt to understand Percy will help me to understand him better, maybe in a different light.


I really enjoyed Mr. Serafin’s video. It distills Binx’s comments on the Search, separating them into a coherent essay. I believe Percy always wanted someone to make movies out of his novels. I think actress Karen Black at one 

time had the rights to “The Moviegoer.” I don’t know what happened. Mr. Serafin gave us a taste of the book in a different medium. (Black, you may recall, played Myrtle Wilson in “The Great Gatsby.”)


Chapter Four opens with Sam Yerger.  One book on Percy, which has interested me is William Rodney Allen’s 1986 “Walker Percy: A Southern Wayfarer,” because it considers his American influences, an unusual approach. He follows 

sources and allusions to Twain, Faulkner, Hemingway and others among five of the six novels.


“ ’The Moviegoer’s’ Hemingway is Sam Yerger,” Allen writes.


He makes good points, leading me to a multiple-choice question: who does Sam most resemble?

a.)    Hemingway

b.)    Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King (partly because of his resemblance to 

Hemingway)

c.)    Lyle Saxon (author Southern studies, including “Gumbo Ya-Ya”—Sam wrote 

books on the South, including my favorite, “Yambilaya Ya-Ya.”)

d.)    W.J. Cash (author of “The Mind of the South”—Sam lectured on “the mind 

of the south” [p. 179])

e.)    All of the above

f.)    None of the above


If you answered “All of the above,” what is Percy doing?


I find that when I run across literary allusions in his work, they often point in multiple directions.  So many writers have identified different “structural” allusions (as Allen calls them, as opposed to “incidental” allusions). Has “The Moviegoer” rung any bells for you in that way?

***

Here I am at a loss. What I would say about Sam Yerger is that he is like all of the new people Percy inserts into the narrative. Percy interrupts constantly to introduce us to pictures of characters, each of which could be a short story in itself. I don't know enough to say anything specific about Sam. But every small or large character brought in impresses in the writing.

***


Another multiple choice: which strikes you as a likely source of “The 

Moviegoer”?


a.)    Dostoevesky’s “Notes From Underground” (explored by the great Percy 

scholar Lewis A. Lawson, and in a book by Jessica Hooten Wilson)

b.)    Warren’s “All the King’s Men” (Allen Shepherd suggests parallels in a 

1971 article)

c.)    “The Great Gatsby” (my choice…Hahaha)

d.)    All of the above


Chapter Four isn’t my favorite section, partly because it pulls Binx out of New Orleans.

He warns us that he hates the planned trip, saying a man “may find himself No one and Nowhere” (p. 99). Are any of his fears realized in Chapter Four? What techniques does he use to guard himself?

***

Binx has to leave New Orleans to see New Orleans and his life there. This chapter is for Binx, who is afraid to leave the familiar, to confront unfamiliar things and after that to confront his Aunt Emily and end his search.
 Among his travels are the people he interacts with and the "movie" plot going on between him and Kate. His sleeplessness makes this whole chapter a kind of waking dream. In dreams we have no inhibitions and don't plan or have control.


   ***

 Another reason Chapter Four doesn’t stand out for me, is that the humor I find in so much of Percy’s work isn’t so prominent. (The only problem I have with Mr. Serafin’s video is the glum tone, by the way.) Although, in Chapter Four, I get a kick out of the awkward failure of Binx and Harold Graebner to have a joyous reunion, similar to Kate’s failure to converse with that opera singer years back in Memphis. Why does Percy focus on broken “messages”? On the train, he reads headlines from a fellow traveler’s newspaper, leading to that odd dream about the sex specialists (p. 189). Any thoughts about that dream (which prefigures a theme in “Love in the Ruins,” do you think)?

***

I love the humor in Percy, especially in this book. His Masters and Johnson like reference is adorable.
This whole section, as you say, has lots of interruptions or brokenness. He has to leave the Chicago conference early because he gets that phone call from Aunt Emily.

***


    The broken conversations Binx and Kate hear when they eavesdrop back at Aunt Emily’s house is another instance of incomplete communication. Why does Percy set it up that way?


    There is a series of failures all through Chapter Four. The Harold Graebner incident is one. In a previous chapter, Binx tells us that seeing Jews turns him on to the Search (p. 88-89), yet when he meets up with Sidney Gross (p. 185) on the train, he would prefer to ignore him. Is that another failure?


    Binx recalls a more serious failure, when he was unable to bond with his father years ago at the Field Museum (p. 204). I find the relationship with the father to be murky. Allen’s essay on “The Moviegoer” makes a convincing argument that Binx is most affected by his father’s suicide “in the wine-dark sea.” DID MR. BOLLING KILL HIMSELF?

***

I do not see this expressly as a suicide. Perhaps some would see it as such in that going off to war is a death wish. But I didn't read it that way.

***


    It’s a compelling argument.  Suicide is a recurring theme throughout Percy’s work, especially given the incidents in his own family. I’m just not sure about Binx’s father; I think the idea is contrary to the comic tone of the novel. The issue is more prominent in Kate’s case. Sam and her mother 

reasonably suspect that Kate is trying to kill herself.  Is Kate’s pill-popping another case of failure? Or does Percy have something else in mind? He has said suicide is the only cure for depression; is Kate depressed, as Aunt Emily believes, or is something else plaguing her?


    Binx and Kate’s relationship takes a big leap in Chapter Four. He proposes marriage for the second time, and they sleep together (another failure!).  What does Kate have going for her that Sharon lacks for Binx?

***
As for suicide, Kate admits that only the thought that she could commit suicide keeps her alive. 

Kate is real and Sharon is only a movie going on in Binx's head. The end of the last chapter has Sharon saying she has to meet someone. She knows more about Binx's plans for her than he understands. Binx's successive secretaries make up a comic plot. With Kate comedy does not figure into their story. She is onto him  and he is foreordained to marry her. 
Though Aunt Emily, the practical, differs from his mother the Catholic, both of these women in Binx's life come to the same conclusion - that he should marry Kate.

***


    I love his vision of their life together, eating oysters on Magazine Street (I miss that city!). At the end of Chapter Two, he offers to calm her fears by getting coffee in the French Quarter. What else does Binx have going for her?

***

He promises to tell her what to do. On page 198 and on 116 and on 61 this idea is referenced. That will keep her sane and okay - her version of happy.

***


    I haven’t talked about Percy’s descriptive powers that I love so much. 

The train ride above the cities of the dead, the picture of a deserted Jackson, Miss., the howling wind in Chicago (threatening like Keats’s “Keen Fitful Gusts”)….I’ll leave off here, and let you enjoy it for yourselves.


    Finally, I have to ask…what is the point of the memory Binx relates about visiting Johnny Weismuller’s pool? (Gatsby ended up in a swimming pool 😊. )


    Naturally, you don’t have to respond to all of my concerns—hope I didn’t 

talk too much.


--Leonard


Dear Percy Fans:


The outside world gets more distracting every day, so I thought I’d 

re-edit my Chapter Four comments and make them a little more succinct and 

offer them as a series of questions, from which you can pick and choose.


1.) Starting again with Sam Yerger, how do you regard his character? Is 

Percy making fun of him as a chronicler of the South? Aunt Emily holds him in high regard, it seems. Were you surprised to find out he had proposed to Kate?


2.) Binx and Kate’s relationship takes a big leap in Chapter Four. He proposes marriage for the second time, and they sleep together. What does Kate have going for her that Sharon lacks for Binx?


3.) I love his vision of their life together, eating oysters on 

Magazine Street. At the end of Chapter Two, he offers to calm her fears by 

getting coffee in the French Quarter. What else does Binx have going for her?


4.) What did you think about the eavesdropping from that little alcove above the party in Emily’s house? Broken or indirect communication seems to be a recurring theme or technique in Percy’s work. That newspaper Binx reads 

from the stranger on the train leads him to have that odd dream. It brings to mind the opening of “Lancelot” with the partial message the main character reads from his jail cell. In other words, why does Percy use that technique?

***

I don't know why Percy uses the technique of interruption, but I do know the story is not the main thing here. There is the description of Binx's mother and family, and his father's side of the family, with both parents remarrying. There are the main characters and the incidental ones who are often described as vividly as the main ones and who often drive the plot as much as the central characters in Binx's life. There is the search and then there is no longer the search. All of this book is interruptions. Perhaps a straight through narrative is the opposite of what Percy wanted to create in this work. Perhaps the digressions matter more than the story.

***


5.) Death seems to haunt the trip to Chicago. The roomettes are like “coffins,” the train flies above the cemeteries in Metaire, fields in Mississippi are “haunted like battlegrounds” and “the genie-soul of Chicago flaps down like a buzzard.” Since Binx contemplates his relationship with his father in this chapter, are these images relevant to those thoughts? Does Binx compare himself to his father? His failure to satisfy him years ago in the museum bothers him, but I think his failure to accept his being the godfather to Harold’s baby is relevant; and to me, it’s a way of making light of the potential seriousness of the Field museum incident. Some say it indicates his father’s suicide—do you agree? 


6.) Similarly, there is the element of Kate’s drug use. Sam and Emily are convinced she is suicidal. But Kate denies it. Is Kate suicidal? Or is that a case of Percy’s making light of another serious issue?


7.) That brings up the whole question of tone: Is “The Moviegoer” a story of tragedy, or do you consider it a comedy? 

***

This is a comedy all the way. It ends neatly. 
However there is much seriousness in stories along the way. His half brother, Lonnie, so central to the story, is seriousness personified.
And I will observe Percy seems to make fun of Binx a lot. All that is going on in Binx's head - a lot of that is not meant to be taken seriously. But the irony is that many of the minor characters are to be taken seriously. The lady in the ticket booth is as real as a major character, isn't she? See page 201 where Binx suggests that every place have a booth set up manned by an ordinary person to give a personal touch to a place so the place has meaning.

***


8.) Finally, one of the provocative statements concerning “moviegoing” is Binx’s conclusion about that “romantic” on the trip home: “He is a moviegoer, though of course he does not go to movies” (p. 216). How is that?

***

You bring up my question. What does Binx mean by this? That the act of going to the movies is a sidebar to what makes someone a moviegoer? It is merely the romance of the search? I hope others answer this one.

***


I hope I’m not being a nuisance by posting twice. I wouldn’t mind 

hearing of your personal relationship with Percy or his work, if you’d like.

***

Additional thoughts about Chapter Four.
One of the things I liked is that if you try to look up "she clave to me for dear life" or lots of other oddities, you will find at least one article which will say "this is mentioned in Walker Percy's The Moviegoer". I love finding those references.
On page 172 there is the word importunate. This word will be reused later in a pivotal scene.
On page 180 there is another mention of pain erasing malaise, like  the accident that interrupted their everydayness.
On page 181 there is a mention of Sherwood's play There Shall Be No Night. I looked it up and it was described as being about how only by giving one's life for others can one's life have meaning. A variation on this is of concern to Percy, I believe, and informs the conclusions of his novels.
I loved on page 203 that he says the midwestern sky is so lonely that, to escape it, people live inside and underground.
I found the scene on page 204 with his father so sad. I wish his reaction could have been otherwise.
Loved that touch on 205 of the orchestra playing Getting to Know You at the beginning of the convention.
On the end of page 195 and on the top of 196 are two more examples of those light reflecting on things ideas. Does anyone know why Percy uses this all the time?
But now they are on their way back to New Orleans and Aunt Emily and I will attempt to wrap up the long read. I hope I don't fall short because the others before me have been so good. 


Thanks again for listening,

Leonard


  • [percy-l] chapter four, janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com, 08/08/2024

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