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

["Henry P. Mills" <wppdirector AT gmail.com>]

Dear Percy-L:

Percy readers will enjoy this essay from Commonweal that explores the theme of “acedia,” or what is definable as ”a form of spiritual or mental sloth and apathy” as applied to Percy. The essay traces a path at a lay level through nearly all Percy’s novels and includes quotes from Percy correspondence and interviews. Commonweal is a forum for civil, reasoned debate on the interaction of faith with contemporary politics and culture.

Regards,

Henry Mills

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Giving the Sickness a Name

Walker Percy & acedia

By Jeff Reimer, Commonweal

July 7, 2021

Acedia is Walker Percy’s great theme, and there is no place for it in America precisely because we have always been puzzled or embarrassed by lives of contemplation. --Mary Gordon

In 1972, Lancelot wasn’t coming off as cleanly as Walker Percy would have liked. He was under intense, self-imposed pressure to produce another critically successful novel. A relatively new empty-nester, he was also drinking more heavily than usual, and was in something of a crisis of faith. Writing to his friend Shelby Foote, he said, “I’ve been in a long spell of acedia, anomie and aridity in which, unlike the saints who write under the assaults of devils, I simply get sleepy and doze off.” Percy being Percy, he inserts a wry, self-deprecating note into his reportage, but his travail with the affliction was very real.

Two years later, he was still struggling. His novel was a little closer to being finished, but then he contracted hepatitis. He became depressed. Writing to Caroline Gordon in June of 1974, he told her,

“My hepatitis and depression are better. Maybe one caused the other. Truthfully I don’t know whether I’ve been overtaken by a virus or male menopause or the devil—who I am quite willing to believe does indeed roam about the world seeking whom he may devour. Anyhow it takes the form in my case of disinterest, accidie, little or no use for the things of God and the old virtues. I’d rather chase women (not that I do, but how strange to have come to this pass). I think it has something to do with laziness or the inability to give birth to a 2-year-old fetus of a novel. I don’t like it at all and keep tearing it up. I feel like a Borgia Pope, I still believe the whole thing, but oh you Italian girls!” . . .

Continued at ...

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/giving-sickness-name