Subject: Re: loss of the creature
From: jim carretta (jcarretta@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Tue Aug 31 1999 - 12:04:01 EDT
I recall reading the Grand Canyon essay, perhaps in 'Message in a
Bottle'. My take on it was that Percy was pointing out that symbols or
words can be overused until they are empty of meaning. Words like
'love'. The erosion of a word or symbol or meaning through overuse.
The same goes for the Grand Canyon. Percy wrote that the average
person had been exposed to so many media images of the Grand Canyon
prior to actually visiting, that once arrived, you see nothing more
than a postcard image. The only way to truly experience the canyon,
Percy suggested, was to be trapped at the bottom, dehydrated, perhaps
with a broken leg, fighting for your life (or something like that).
This sort of follows Percy's theory that people never seem so alive as
when they are being shot at (Second Coming) or risking their lives in a
hurricane. To Percy, the Grand Canyon became just one more symbol of
'everydayness'. This was the argument I used with my wife to avoid
going to the Canyon. I lost.
Jim Carretta
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