Re: Moviegoer and despair


Subject: Re: Moviegoer and despair
From: David Alan Beck (dabeck@IUPUI.EDU)
Date: Tue Nov 23 1999 - 18:05:58 EST


Hold on, Rhonda, before withdrawing your pieces from the chess board.
Right when things look black and white and the discussion settled, here is
another quote from our friend, Walker:

"I find it usefulfor my characters to be living out these various modes of
being [the three spheres]. I first did it in The Moviegoer.: Binx
Bolling lived out the various Kierkegaardian modes of existence:
aesthetic, ethcial, and religious." (More Conversations...233)

So, if we are going by Percy's own words, we are at a stale mate. Pick
your quote and run with it. I remember a professor I had use to tell me,
"To hell with what the author says it means. What does the text tell you."
Having read the interviews of Faulkner, I had to agree. (Were the
contradictions based on bourbon, a bad memory, or a desire to confuse
english majors/instructors?) Or as my students often say: Why don't these
writers just say what they mean and mean what they say?

Actually, I think your point is a valid one, a point that I will
intentionally ignore so that I don't have to revise my thesis anymore than
I am already doing.

Anyone want to chime in and play the role of tie-breaker?

Have a good Thanksgiving.

David Beck

"Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle,
curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf."
                                                    - Annie Dillard
                                          from "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"

On Sun, 21 Nov 1999, Rhonda McDonnell wrote:

> All right David, I take that as a check mate! Since Percy himself maintains
> that Binx vaults over the ethical sphere, I can't very well maintain that at
> the point under discussion Binx is in the ethical stage. Proof again that
> research pays off. Bravo! And, continued good luck wishes on your project.
>
> Rhonda
>
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