Subject: Re: loss of the creature
From: Barranger, G. K. (nikkibar@wild.net)
Date: Tue Aug 31 1999 - 13:31:07 EDT
jim carretta wrote:
>
> 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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pity...
Nikki
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