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

[RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>]

Thanks to Leonard and Henry for helping me to get back on track with this project. Rereading The Moviegoer has been nothing short of a revelation. There's so much I had forgotten. What a joy this has been!

Here's a random thought that has been tormenting me—how old do you think Binx's mother is? He is turning 30 and he had an older brother. Her youngest child seems to be little more than a toddler. She was his father's nurse, so that was two years schooling in the '50s and then if Binx's father hired her fresh from nursing school, they still had to have something of a courtship. So say they married when she was 21. That puts her first child at 22, meaning that if Binx were the oldest she'd be 52, but since he isn't she's somewhere between 52 and 55. Not an impossibility to have a toddler at that age, but golly am I exhausted just thinking about it!

On to Leonard's fine questions:

I agree that Sam has some Hemingway in him, as well as Wiley Cash perhaps and others as mentioned. I definitely connected Sam with Forney Aiken from The Last Gentleman in certain ways. A sort of intellectual type in love with his own voice. But the strongest influence in creating Sam definitely points to Hemingway—and Joel reminds me a bit of Brett in The Sun Also Rises ​and a bit of Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's third wife. And they live in Chiapas, Mexico, which is a corollary to Hemingway living in Cuba. However, Hemingway is no chronicler of the South. As to that aspect of him, I did think of Cash, but also of both Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren. Why does Sam need to be drawn from anyone? I suppose he doesn't—he makes perfect sense and is of a piece without us drawing any comparisons. However, Percy's headlong and somewhat gleeful hyperbole in presenting him definitely invites a view toward some sort of social commentary or criticism being presented by Sam. Maybe Percy is just distancing himself from the earlier generation of Modern writers.​

What Kate has the Binx doesn't have is that she is on to him. While it seems she is in trouble in this chapter, so is Binx. I think she recognizes that. She puts herself in his care so that she can care for him. And the only way the world makes sense for either of them is for them to take it on together. As much as he sees everyone else in terms of movie characters, he really tries to understand his own identity in that fashion – Oh Rory! I once searched out some Rory Calhoun movies and was surprised. He didn't seem to be much—William Holden was definitely a bigger star from what I could tell. His performance was okay but sort of middling. I wonder what that says?

Here's another Easter egg—did y'all notice that Percy is already thinking about tapping on walls to communicate? We have to wait for Lancelot for him to come back to it, but here it is in this section of Moviegoer.

​Onto the broken and partial communications. I can't help but think of the stories of Percy sitting in his booth at the Waffle House, eavesdropping on the conversations around him. Getting the sense of how people used language and put themselves in the world. Another story is of how he watched soap operas, particularly Another World with the sound turned off. I feel like it all relates. I think, Leonard, that a fine paper could be written on that topic, if you wanted to pursue it. I'd certainly be interested in reading it! There's usually a Percy session at SAMLA if you want to make a trip to Jacksonville.

I don't think Binx's father truly commits suicide. Rather he dies in a war he didn't have to take part in—a sort of indirect suicide. At least that's how I've understood it. Suicide and death, both spiritual and literal, do haunt this section. Leonard, when you pointed that out, I wondered why I hadn't paid better attention to it.

Another aspect of this section that you directed our attention to in your first post, Leonard, was the cognitive dissonance regarding Jewish people. What does it mean if they are a sign from God, and when he encounters one, all he wants to do is to get away from him? Is there a bigger message about spiritual growth in this moment? Is it meant to signify the person who receives a sign from God and yet continues in everydayness?

As for tone—comedy I suppose. In many ways, The Moviegoer follows the pattern of a Shakespearean comedy, with marriage at the end. And while Kate is believed to be "in trouble" I have never, not even on first reading, believed it for an instant. That pretend trouble reminds me of Hero in All's Well that Ends Well. 

I could go on, but I hope to leave space for others. Looking forward to Janet's post at the end of the week, and waiting for the true arrival of Tropical Storm Debby. As I'm worried about the dead pine in the front yard of my temporary (and rented) home falling on house or car, I don't expect to feel good in a bad environment when she gets here. Hope all in her path stay safe and dry.

Rhonda McDonnell

"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~
  

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From: <hughesl6363 AT aol.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 8:56 PM
Subject: [percy-l] The Moviegoer-Chapter Four (New Post)
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>

Dear Percy Fans:

        The outside world gets more distracting every day, so I thought I’d re-edit my Chapter Four comments and make them a little more succinct and offer them as a series of questions, from which you can pick and choose.

1.)     Starting again with Sam Yerger, how do you regard his character? Is Percy making fun of him as a chronicler of the South? Aunt Emily holds him in high regard, it seems. Were you surprised to find out he had proposed to Kate?

2.)     Binx and Kate’s relationship takes a big leap in Chapter Four. He proposes marriage for the second time, and they sleep together.  What does Kate have going for her that Sharon lacks for Binx?

3.)       I love his vision of their life together, eating oysters on Magazine Street. At the end of Chapter Two, he offers to calm her fears by getting coffee in the French Quarter. What else does Binx have going for her?

4.)     What did you think about the eavesdropping from that little alcove above the party in Emily’s house?  Broken or indirect communication seems to be a recurring theme or technique in Percy’s work.  That newspaper Binx reads from the stranger on the train leads him to have that odd dream.  It brings to mind the opening of “Lancelot” with the partial message the main character reads from his jail cell. In other words, why does Percy use that technique?

5.)     Death seems to haunt the trip to Chicago. The roomettes are like “coffins,” the train flies above the cemeteries in Metaire, fields in Mississippi are “haunted like battlegrounds” and “the genie-soul of Chicago flaps down like a buzzard.” Since Binx contemplates his relationship with his father in this chapter, are these images relevant to those thoughts? Does Binx compare himself to his father? His failure to satisfy him years ago in the museum bothers him, but I think his failure to accept his being the godfather to Harold’s baby is relevant; and to me, it’s a way of making light of the potential seriousness of the Field museum incident. Some say it indicates his father’s suicide—do you agree? 

6.)     Similarly, there is the element of Kate’s drug use.  Sam and Emily are convinced she is suicidal. But Kate denies it. Is Kate suicidal?  Or is that a case of Percy’s making light of another serious issue?

7.)     That brings up the whole question of tone: Is “The Moviegoer” a story of tragedy, or do you consider it a comedy?

8.)     Finally, one of the provocative statements concerning “moviegoing” is Binx’s conclusion about that “romantic” on the trip home: “He is a moviegoer, though of course he does not go to movies” (p. 216). How is that?

        I hope I’m not being a nuisance by posting twice. I wouldn’t mind hearing of your personal relationship with Percy or his work, if you’d like.

Thanks again for listening,
Leonard