Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

percy-l - [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion / Chapter 1 - Chapter 2, Section 5

percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org

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

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>
  • To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman Discussion / Chapter 1 - Chapter 2, Section 5
  • Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:00:33 +0000

This post covers this week's reading of Chapter 1 - Chapter 2, Section 5.

Chapter One, The Last Gentleman
Hello to the list, and welcome to our summer slow-read discussion. I have some thoughts and questions below. As you read LG, please chime in with your thoughts, questions, and answers to the questions of others. Think of it as a virtual book club, where we come together as readers and respond as such. For my part, I'm wiping all academic considerations from my mind, and I'm reading this very fine novel for pleasure alone. For your part, you are welcome to approach the novel in any way you'd like, and to share that with the rest of us.
I wanted to come to LG fresh, and so I tried to wipe my memory of what I already know is to come in the novel and of what comes later for Will in The Second Coming. One thing that is helping me do that is I’m reading it on Kindle. This is facilitated by the fact that, once again, all my physical books are packed away in anticipation of a move later this summer. Not having all my previous notes and underlined passages helps me to read it like it’s the first time, although I’m a bit put off by everyone else’s underlined passages. I’ll have to see if I can turn that off. Anyway, here are some initial points/questions that I’m hoping might prompt some discussion. Please throw your own into the hopper as well!
Before reading:
  1. I’m wondering if anyone else had the same goal – to come at the novel fresh – or if it’s the pleasure of returning to the book again that is working for you this time?
Chapter 1
  1. I’m struck in this first chapter by the presence of the narrative voice. It’s so assertively 1950-60s era and male to me, though the narrator is not in any way identified. But still, that narrator is a character, don’t you think? And I’m wondering, do I take the narrator as the voice-over in a film? As a psychiatrist making patient notes? As a sort of newscaster reporting on Will’s activities? Does the narrative voice assert itself that way for you? Or is it just the simple means of getting to the story?
  2. Will feels surprisingly current to me – this was my biggest shock upon returning to this novel. I used to feel that in some ways it was the most dated of Percy’s fiction. But perhaps because history has begun to rhyme a bit, LG pulls back into the moment for me. Will seems like so many of today’s young people, floating along and performing under his potential. He doesn’t have a strong identity or reliable social skills, and he is beset by fugues and anxieties. He could be the case study or subject of so many articles I read today about young people who have a failure to launch, so to speak. But before I wander into musing about today’s culture and today’s young people and what might be occurring within my own time, let me come back to the novel itself. In this re-read (or first read even), where does this novel seem to fall on the dated vs timeless scale? While the social satire hasn’t yet begun, it’s coming, and it draws upon Percy’s time period, as Dante did in The Inferno. Dante, of course, shook free from being dated and achieved timelessness. Can a novel like this – and Percy in general – do the same?
  3. My favorite interaction in this first chapter is between Will and Dr. Gamow. There’s so much about it that strikes me as funny, such as the narrator’s description of Gamow’s eventual disenchantment with Will because Will is so good at being a patient without actually addressing his problems or, as they say regarding therapy and groups, doing the work. I can’t help but speculate on how much of Percy’s own life in New York and visits to Janet Rioch, his therapist, is woven into this dynamic. An interviewer once described Percy as an adept “dancer,” which I remembered when reading the description of Will as one in Gamow’s estimation. I’d look up the interview, but, as I said, my books are all packed. Maybe someone else knows? Percy once considered being a psychiatrist, but here he seems to be saying something about therapy, psychologists, and maybe especially patients. What do you think?
Chapter 2 (through section 5)
  1. I couldn’t help but think of how 2025 students would react to Will’s pivot from birdwatching to people watching through his telescope. Is he a voyeur, a peeping Tom, or does he have some other reason for his actions?
  2. His integration into the Vaught clan—does that work for you? Poppy Vaught has some memory of Will’s father and uncle, and Will is a great social mimic (not to mention, he is returning to himself through this mimicry). But how suspicious is it that he shows up every day to visit? If I were the Vaughts, I’d wonder what he was up to.
  3. As a follow-up, there’s a reaction to his father that he is picking up on but doesn’t understand. I remember enough to know what is being foreshadowed, but if I look at it from my clean slate perspective, I wonder if there’s a tension in the Vaught clan regarding Will. Poppy is very team Will, but the older women seem far more reticent—particularly Rita.
  4. Is it romantic, the way Will skulks around after Kitty and then confesses over-the-top feelings for her, or is it creepy? Or is it just that Rita is right—he’s very ill?
 I can't wait to see what everyone else is thinking! All the best to all of you!

Rhonda McDonnell
Member of the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism
Texas Tech University

"You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." ~Walker Percy~
  



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page