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Subject: Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy
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Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman reading group discussion ends Friday
- From: "jp AT jlarsp.com" <jp AT jlarsp.com>
- To: percy list <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman reading group discussion ends Friday
- Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2025 13:58:09 -0500
Hello all. I apologize for coming to the discussion at the end. I was traveling and busy and unable to read the first three weeks of the slow read and have been trying to catch up since. I just finished the novel and am enjoying reading through the discussion. I don’t want to rehash everything that has been covered and do want to add a few general thoughts and comment on the ending.
I think I had only read it twice before, according to notes in my old paperback, once in 1985 and once in 1986—second time must have been reading with someone. I’ve read The Second Coming several times in the last decades, and often describe it as my favorite novel. So it was interesting going back to Will’s origins. Like Rhonda, I read it this time on a kindle, so wasn’t distracted by all the passages that are underlined in my yellowed mass market version.
Like Leonard and Rhonda, I was struck by the narrator in the first part of the novel. It seemed maybe a way of portraying Will as an everyman, trying to make it universal, which is interesting because he is such a unique character. I’d also forgotten how funny Percy could be. There were quite a few times I laughed out loud.
Reading through the early posts there was a good discussion of Kitty, whether Will really loved her. “I something her” he says. They seem to both be misfits who don’t really fit in with the world around them, though that doesn’t mean they fit with each other either. And it certainly doesn’t mean that everyone else, the “normal” people, have anything figured out any better than Will or Kitty. So in his search for meaning in the world, perhaps it makes sense that Will is drawn to someone, who, like himself if in a different way, also doesn’t fit in. And of course there is irony there, as Mr. Vaught hires Will because he is one of them, a Southerner.
It was interesting to hear all your comparisons between The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman. I want to reread The Second Coming again as I kept feeling similarities there as well. It made me think of something Richard Thompson said about songwriting. Something to the effect that one keeps writing the same song over and over again, and you just hope to make them different enough that no one notices. That said, there are unique things to each novel, and all are worth reading and discussing. It’s worthwhile to keep coming at things from different angles. I too, like all of you, find new things each time I read the novel, and each time I really listen to a great song. Each time we confront them anew, as the person we are at that moment.
At one point in the discussion, Leonard asks Why does Will stick with Kitty? That’s a great question. Throughout it was really never clear what the attraction was, other than two people out of place in the world who don’t know what else to do, so they stick together. Despite picking out a house and dreams of fitting in with a normal, “happy” life like everyone else seems to be living, it seems unlikely that could ever happen, and I wonder if Percy thought it was. Or if there is any consensus on what a normal happy life would be. It often feels like his novels all point to the questions that he will ask in “Lost in the Cosmos.”
Janet asks, “Is Sutter insightful or merely a self indulgent drunk?” I suppose the answer could be “Yes.” While reading your comments I had the thought that this is exactly why Will is drawn to Sutter and believes he has the answer. He has to believe someone has the answer, that there is an answer, and he sure isn’t finding it from any of the supposedly normal happy people out there. So he looks to someone as troubled as himself. Perhaps not the best path to insight, yet I understand why Will went down that path.
One of Wade’s comments sent me thinking. It begins:
[Paraphrasing from memory]
Will: "Why is everyone drinking in the bar so happy when I can't be? What's
wrong with me?"
"What makes you think they're happy?"
This is the moment of FOMO fallout, the kids would say. Will begins to
understand that his eye is lying to him as he's watching "people" in their
*natural* environment - seeking solace in the "immanence" of the world - and
not getting very far besides the hangover.
It struck me reading this, and other comments, that Percy is on to the fact that everyone looks around them—including me—and finds it all too easy to believe that we are the only ones who don’t “get it,” the only ones who aren’t happy in the group at the bar drinking, etc. And of course everyone else is not happy all the time, they don’t have it all figured out. So maybe, if we can figure out how to get there, we can realize that we are not outliers, we are part of the group, part of humanity. Perhaps the difference is not between those who are lost and those who are normal and happy and have it figured out, but between those who are lost and realize that we are all lost, and those who pretend they are not lost, who pretend that there is a normal, a happy. This is hardly an original thought, but Wade’s comment made me dwell on it again.
Wade ends his post quoting from Steve Martin’s con man routine, "Look. I run a show here. It's a lot of smoke and noise and it's strictly for the suckers. I've been pulling one kind of scam or another since I was your age. If there's one thing I know it's how to spot the genuine article because that's what you've got to watch out for. Not the cops. You can always get around the cops. But the one thing you can never ever get around is the genuine article. And you, kid, are the genuine article."
"Are you saying you think you're a fake?"
"I know I'm a fake."
"Well, what difference does it make if you get the job done?"
"Kid, it makes all the difference in the world."
That seems to be the crux of the matter. How do we become the genuine article? How do we tell? Or is it all a con? The search always continues for the genuine article. Of course the Martin routine can be seen with another twist, I think. In it, is the genuine article just the “true believer” who will fall into a cult? Is that better or worse than a con? And I’m losing my point here, so onward I go.
Thank you, Doug, for your great comments! You covered a lot of the ground I was thinking and musing about. And thanks to all for their great insights. It makes the novel so much richer to see how it has reached people in different ways. I could say a lot more here, and don’t want to rehash too many things already discussed. I was sorry I couldn’t participate in real time. Hopefully next summer if we do another slow read.
A final thought that I don’t think was discussed, is what happened, what is the meaning of the final scene. Will is talking to Sutter, and Sutter asks—
“Anything else?”
“No sir.”
But as the Edsel took off, spavined and sprung, sunk at one corner and flatulent in its muffler, spuriously elegant and unsound, like a Negro’s car, a fake Ford, a final question did occur to him and he took off after it.
“Wait,” he shouted in a dead run.
The Edsel paused, sighed, and stopped.
Strength flowed like oil into his muscles and he ran with great joyous ten-foot antelope bounds.
The Edsel waited for him.
When I read this so many questions came to mind. First, obviously, is what final question did he have. And while I wondered that, I did not wonder what answer, final or otherwise, Sutter might have for Will. And the way Percy describes the Edsel, “spuriously elegant and unsound,” saying it sighed, etc., almost feels like he is metaphorically describing Sutter himself. And Sutter and the Edsel waited for Will. As though Sutter needed Will’s question as much or more than Will needed whatever answer Sutter would give. The fact that Percy does not give us the question may be his way of telling us that the search is what is important, perhaps even that in this incarnation there are no final answers to be found. What matters is the journey, asking questions, seeking truth, wholeness.
Or maybe Percy couldn’t think of the right question to sum it all up and thought it best left to the reader to supply her own question.
Far more enjoyable and insightful to reread the novel with all of you as reading companions than doing it alone. If being in a community of seekers is as close as we can get to the right final question or answer, I think I’m okay with that.
Thanks,
John Pearson
On Jul 21, 2025, at 2:17 PM, Henry P. Mills III <wppdirector AT gmail.com> wrote:Dear Reading Group:First, thank you to Janet and Leonard for posting your thoughtful joint questions on Friday. And thanks as well to Rhonda, Chuck, Tom, and everyone who contributed questions and responses over the past few weeks. Your efforts and insights led to many great discussions!
This Friday marks the conclusion of this year's summer reading group, though of course, you’re welcome to keep the conversation going beyond that. Janet's and Leonard’s questions still offer plenty of material to explore.
In addition, everyone is invited to share closing thoughts on the novel as well. For instance, did the ending feel complete? Would you read the book again, now that you’ve finished it? How did it compare as a novel to The Moviegoer, last summer's book? Any and all reflections you share will add further breadth, no doubt, to our understanding and appreciation of the novel and Percy as a writer.
Finally, I’m re-attaching the quiz I sent out before we began reading — have fun!Cheers,Henry__Henry P. Mills IIIDirector, The Walker Percy Project----------------------------------<last-gentleman-quiz.pdf>
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[percy-l] The Last Gentleman reading group discussion ends Friday,
Henry P. Mills III, 07/21/2025
- Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman reading group discussion ends Friday, jp AT jlarsp.com, 07/23/2025
-
Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman reading group discussion ends Friday,
Leonard, 07/25/2025
- Re: [percy-l] The Last Gentleman reading group discussion ends Friday, honeyjbc1, 07/25/2025
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