Re: Percy/O'Connor/Dark Night

Avstar of Texas (avstar@ONRAMP.NET)
Sat, 5 Apr 1997 20:44:07 -0600

"tenderness leads to the gas chambers" makes me think of another line from
Percy's
books which always puzzled me, and I think it may be along the same line.
In "Lost in the Cosmos" when the Earthship was communicating with PC3, the PC3
spokesperson said, in reference to an earlier experience with C2s, "we could
tolerate their odd sexual behavior, but they were also sentimental and cruel-
or rather sentimental, therefore cruel". I always wondered exactly what he
meant when he lumped sentimentality and cruelty together. Any thoughts?

Eldon Roehl

At 03:19 PM 4/3/97 +0000, you wrote:
>In light of the discussion about Fr. Smith's admonition that "tenderness
>leads to the gas chambers" and Tom More's daughter who died of a brain
>tumor, I wanted to point out an interesting connection between Percy and
>Flannery O'Connor. At the request of the sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual
>Help Free Cancer Home in Atlanta, O'Connor wrote the introduction to _A
>Memoir of Mary Ann_, the story of a young girl with brain cancer whose
>bravery astounded the sisters. O'Connor's introduction is one of the most
>brilliant pieces on the mystery of suffering I've ever read. In the piece
>she warns those who are quick to gauge the "quality of life" of Mary Ann and
>others like her:
>
> In the absence [of faith] now, we govern by tenderness. It is a
>tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ,
> is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source
>of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced
labor
> camps and the fumes of the gas chamber. (_Mystery and Manners_ 227)
>
>As I recall, Percy said in an interview that he had never read O'Connor's
>introduction and did not realize that he had echoed O'Connor's words. The
>similarities between More's daughter and Mary Ann and between the
>ruminations on tenderness are striking indeed.
>
>As for Prof. Manier's question about what Tom More thinks about Fr. Smith's
>precis that "tenderness leads to the gas chamber," I think that it signals
>his final revelation in the "dark night," which as St. Ignatius and others
>note, precedes the movement toward grace--signaled in the novel by Tom's
>agreeing to be a "substitue altar boy" (movement from his earlier refusal to
>assist Fr. Smith due to uncertainty of belief). In the end, Tom bears
>witness to Mickey LaFaye's recognition of her soul, which presumably has
>import for his own spiritual condition. As is always the case in Percy's
>fiction this recognition is unspeakable except in the simplest terms:
>"Well, well, well."
>
>Ted Atkinson
>
>