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

[RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>]

Hello friends,

I’m so very pleased that Henry suggested this slow read of The Moviegoer. I think my last true read of it was in 2005, when I was still teaching high school and I introduced it to my senior AP students. Most didn’t quite get it, although I remember one loved it from the outset and another returned to it as an adult and wrote me about that experience. All this digression is just to say that I was surprised at how much I’d forgotten and at how some of my memories of the novel were amiss. Check your own knowledge with the quizzes Henry sent out — just be sure to click “check answer” each time or your answer isn’t recorded. 

For myself, I decided to try to suspend my prior knowledge of the novel (Percy might have used the philosophical term augehoben). I wanted to come to back to it as though reading it for the first time. It’s a bit impossible but I’m giving it my best shot. I’m also really focused on being a reader — I’ve read the scholarship on Percy, but I’m more interested in what readers think of him, and I think he might agree. 

I have some questions I am contemplating regarding the novel — some for the first time and others ones that arise for nearly any reader. I am including them here for discussion along with a bit of my own thoughts. I invite any sort of response — disagreement, elaboration, alternative perspectives, etc., or other thoughts about this first section of the novel (60ish pages in most editions). My one request is that we keep our focus on this first section and not jump ahead to things we may know will happen later. 

— Here’s a simple one: most folks refer to our narrator as Binx, a nickname Walter uses for him, but Aunt Emily refers to him as Jack several times, and his given name is John. Why so many names? Is it merely the Southerness of the novel? I recall two Tennessee boys who showed up in a class I was teaching at Arizona State — they went by Driver and Yancy (middle names) rather than their first names, which is like using a diminutive for Binkerson to refer to our narrator. So the excess of names might be atmospheric — like reading a Russian novel and recognizing that every character will have two or three names. Or is the excess of names (John/Jack/Binx) —all of which we are provided in this first section—saying something more about his identity? Also, is it significant that John Bolling was a historical person? To save you the trouble of looking it up, he was a descendant of Pocahontas and John Rolf, and was an 18th century  Virginia planter and politician.  

— What do you make of Binx as he presents himself in this opening section? How do we reconcile the failed researcher, the one who refuses to be distracted from the wonder, with the stock broker who has as his only talent the ability to make money? What does going to the movies signify for him? He seems to treat films (and movie stars like William Holden) as a sort of sociological experiment—as research though he claims to not be a researcher. 

—Inevitably reading this novel leads to discussion about the search — what he’s searching for and the like. However, in this reading “the wonder” caught my attention. While it is related to the search, it seems more about a state of being. What exactly is this wonder?

—If you’ve read Bertram Wyatt Brown’s fine books on the Percy family (House of Percy and The Literary Percys) or Will Percy’s Lanterns on the Levee, or the biographies by Samway and Tolson, what do you make of the autobiographical aspects of the novel? How much of it is Percy wrestling with his own nature? Or does it do the novel a disservice to consider its possible connections to Percy’s own life?

— What do you think of Percy’s portrayal of race relations? The obvious character to consider is Mercer, who seems to be in the process of transforming from the old way of doing things to a new way of being in the world. A distinction seems to be drawn between how Aunt Emily sees Mercer and how Binx sees him. Percy was an astute observer of human nature, and I have the sense that his descriptions were lifted from real life— not just of Mercer but also of the interactions between Walter and Jake. Does Binx merely notice these things or do you get some sense of judgment? Add to that the inclusion of the marchers in dirty Klan robes in the Mardi Gras parade—is this detail just a bit of atmosphere or is Percy making some bigger point?

—This chapter focuses on establishing key relationships between Binx and Aunt Emily and Binx and Kate. This makes sense to me as they are the two most important people in his life. However, Percy also spends quite a bit of time on Binx’s interactions with Walter, Mercer, and Eddie. What does each relationship reveal about Binx? 

— Here’s a last question: does the novel feel dated? For a while it did feel dated to me, but this time I was struck by how current the voice in this novel is. I’ve been reading a lot of books published in the last couple of years, and Moviegoer fits right in — at least that’s how it’s reading for me. 

Those questions are the things that caught my attention on this read. Any thoughts on them? And how about you? What have you caught onto this time? 

I’m looking forward to everyone’s opinions and perceptions!

Rhonda

P.S. is it just me or is this novel a very welcome respite from the current news cycle? 

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