The two novels which I have liked the most are LOVE IN THE RUINS
and THE SECOND COMING, though these are such different books! (I haven't
found the time to read LANCELOT yet; no flames please.) I read LitR first,
and I remember guffawing my way through the first fifty pages or so as
Percy cracked one joke after another on the American political scene. When
he joked about the CCCP--the Christian Conservative Constitutional Party--,
I knew I was reading the work of a genius. The apocalyptic and political
elements in LitR remind me of the novels of Kurt Vonnegut.
TSC, on the other hand, is pure tenderness. I think Allie is one of
Percy's most masterful creations, a perfect metaphor for the pilgrim lost
in the modern world. She is also a stinging commentary on the mental health
profession, and the society which identifies existential uncertainty and an
inability to 'fit in' with mental illness. Percy does work in some
apocalyptic elements, though: my favorite quotation from the book is the
exclamation, "Is this an age of belief, ... a great renaissance of faith
after a period of crass materialism, atheism, agnosticism, liberalism,
scientism? Or is it an age of madness in which everyone believes
everything? Which?" That sentiment sums up Percy's work for me.
-- Duncan Vinson - University of the South - Sewanee, Tenn., USA http://www.sewanee.edu/vinsold0/top.html - Sewanee is not a river. Prevent forest fires: support strip mining.