"Walker attributed his choice of vocation to the privilege he had — it was nothing less than a privilege in his estimation — of "taking the cure" at "an old-fashioned sanatorium," which he compared to the sanatorium in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. The comparison was somewhat hyperbolic. Yet, although it hardly offered an exotic community of patients and doctors — the exotic emblems of a dying European culture — that Hans Castorp encountered on his Swiss mountain in the years immediately preceding the first world war, Trudeau Sanatorium did afford Percy the opportunity, in the context of life in a community of displaced fellow sufferers, to pursue a personal quest into the mystery of existence."Read the full memorial here: https://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/memorials/simpson.html
Mr.Mills, thank you so much for posting this wonderful article. I would companion it with an essay called "The Walker Percy Option" published a few years ago. The First Things article mentions in passing Mann's "The Magic Mountain". Did Percy read this, I wonder?
Happy New Year, Percyites!
Michael SerafinChicopee, MA.
From: percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org <percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, January 2, 2026 5:00 PM
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: percy-l Digest Fri, 02 Jan 2026 (1/1)percy-l digest Fri, 02 Jan 2026
Table of contents:
* 1 - [percy-l] Happy New Year to Percy-L -- "Walker Percy’s Pilgrimage
" (First Things Magazine) - "Henry P. Mills III" <wppdirector AT gmail.com>
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Message-ID:
<CAPHQa6R8tHy-079v8ZDagg+QhF65VTrbmfp8DvoLtQmGmzGo9Q AT mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2026 09:36:42 -0500
From: "Henry P. Mills III" <wppdirector AT gmail.com>
Subject: [percy-l] Happy New Year to Percy-L -- "Walker Percy’s Pilgrimage
" (First Things Magazine)
A Happy New Year's greeting to all Percy-L members:
Algis Valiunas provides us a well-written, insightful essay appropriate to the
start of a new year on Percy and his literary vision.
Wishing all a successful journey to your own personal authenticity ahead!
Best, Henry Mills
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"Walker Percy’s Pilgrimage"
*First Things Magazine*
Algis Valiuna, Nov. 25, 2025
"People can get used to most anything. Even the abyss may be rendered
tolerable—or, for that matter, luxurious—furnished with creature comforts
so that the unbearable truth of one’s condition is overlooked: a pair of
lavishly upholstered armchairs, some choice pictures on the wall, bookcases
laden with the best that has been thought and said, a sound system worthy
of your favorite Beethoven and Brahms recordings, a well-stocked liquor
cabinet, soothing overhead track lighting, and strategically placed table
lamps to make you almost forget the perpetual darkness outside your walls.
The hell with the world outside, anyway: You’re home, the best place there
is, you’re prosperous and well liked, you’re a fine example to your
children, your wife and your mistress are better-looking than you deserve,
and you can’t imagine a better life than the one you’ve got....“The
specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being
despair”...
https://firstthings.com/walker-percys-pilgrimage/
__
Henry P. Mills III
Director, The Walker Percy Project
walkerpercyproject.org
wppdirector AT gmail.com
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End of percy-l Digest Fri, 02 Jan 2026
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