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

[lowry.charles AT gmail.com]





Mes amis,

I was poking around in the archive when I came across Leonard’s very thorough examination of Chapter 4.  I did not recall seeing it before, and further checking revealed that it was not in my inbox.  If any of you find yourselves, to quote our legal brethren, “similarly situated,” you can find Leonard’s e-mail in the Percy list archive.

Ad res nostras: thank you, Leonard, for that very thought-provoking communication.  I confess that many of the questions you ask are quite outside my range of knowledge; I read seriously but not professionally.  Still, you have offered much to think about.

Starting from your thoughts and questions, let me offer a few words on a couple of the topics.

Sam Yerger.  Leonard offers several possibilities for the origin of Sam Yerger.  He quotes from Rodney Allen’s 1986 book on specifically American influences on Percy.

<<“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>>

I’m afraid I take a very much simpler view: this is just satire.  Percy throughout these several pages is just making fun of Sam’s rather dramatic public persona.  We see this with Sam’s hand gesture toward Binx, with tales of Mexican adventure (including the faux deathbed scene), with Sam’s overly emotional speech at dinner, with his New York name dropping (the Princess, Dr. Sue, et al).  Is Percy maybe telling us that Sam is trying a little too hard, is playing to the audience?  I think Percy shows the exact same attitude when he discusses celebrity contributions to the radio program “This I Believe.”

Leonard continues to quote from Allen, this time about the death of Binx’s father, which Allen mysteriously (to me at least) terms a suicide.  

<<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?>>

He died in the war, and in the couple places in the novel where his death is discussed, I have never seen or discerned a single hint of suicide.  Leonard, could you possibly note Allen’s evidence?  Am I missing something?  The piece of literature, by the way, which to me most closely resembles is A. E. Housman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young.”  Housman and maybe Percy are telling us that death while achievements are remembered and still uneclipsed may not be the worst thing.

These are the first two things that came to mind.  I’m sure there are others.  Thank you, Leonard, for the work you put in and for the excellent details you presented.

Chuck Lowry

Brooklyn, New York