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

[hughesl6363 AT aol.com]

Ms McDonnell and other Percyphiles:

So great to hear from people about a book I've been living with for 50 years. My book club here in Hyattsville may kick me out if I don't stop talking about Walker Percy.

I hope my responses to your questions are coherent.

--I considered Binx's varied names were a way of illustrating different relationships people have with him. Aunt Emily regards him more formally than does Kate, for example. It would also be relevant to Percy's ideas of the complex Self (as in his comments on horoscope readings in "Lost in the Cosmos").

--Binx seems to use "research" to refer to THE Search as well as the common usage of scientific research, which is Emily's use of the term. Binx's search goes beyond science to a different reality (he doesn't confirm he is searching for God). Movies seem to be for him an artificial version of that other reality; the amnesiac in the first film he describes is in a position to pursue the search, but he sells out for a happy ending.

--"Wonder" is what motivates the search. To me, it harkens back to "The Great Gatsby," especially the climactic scene where Nick Carraway contemplates Gatsby's "wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock," comparing it to the wonder in the minds of America's discoverers. This is significant to me, having contended elsewhere that "The Moviegoer" is intimately connected to "Gatsby." It's hard for me to re-read "The Moviegoer" without seeing "Gatsby" all over the place.

--I'm not sure about autobiographical connections. Percy lived in the Garden District for some time. And Galatoire's was his favorite eaterie there. Like Binx, he avoided spending his life in the city, settling in Covington across the lake. From what I've read, he probably, like Binx, enjoyed the companionship of women in his younger days.

--His portrayal of black characters will probably get him into trouble these days of heightened sensitivity to race relations, but I find it interesting that he has Binx discussing Mercer in the way he observes everyone and everything in terms of varying levels of reality, aware of Mercer's different ways of approaching others, and Emily's way of fantasizing about his personality. The Klan float had to have been inspired by Percy's own observations during a time when race relations were about to explode.

--Binx's observations of Mercer's "realities" are consistent with his opinions of other "minor" characters. Ed Lovell has created a reality that is based on material-world survival--practical, but leaving him far from ever contemplating a "search." To Binx, Walter is similarly distracted, as shown by his obsession with renovating the house he may be in line to inherit.

--Finally, I've never thought of anything Percy has written as "dated." I thought, for a time, that "Love in the Ruins" was showing its age, but it seems more relevant with every passing year. Themes, characters in "The Moviegoer" are universal, and even the setting--the French Quarter, the Garden District--thankfully hasn't changed dramatically through the decades.

Thank you for listening,
Leonard Hughes

On Tuesday, July 9, 2024 at 05:27:17 AM EDT, RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com> wrote:

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 termaugehoben). 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 andThe 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? 

Sent from my iPhone

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