Subject: Re: Moviegoer and despair
From: David Alan Beck (dabeck@IUPUI.EDU)
Date: Thu Nov 25 1999 - 11:44:05 EST
Marcus,
I think that you bring up a rather interesting point (i.e. the ghost
chapter). Percy has some peculiar endings; Lancelot and The Last Gentleman
come to mind. Don't get me wrong: I like the way he ends these novels.
Here the "final" chapter is the ghost chapter (as opposed to the missing
chapter between the final one and the epilogue, as in The Moviegoer and
Love in the Ruins). In other words, it is left to the reader to supply Fr.
John's comments to Lance and Will's conversation with Sutter while driving
in the Edsel.
Makes for some interesting speculations (and even, sometimes, good class
room discussion). On a side note, I used Love in the Ruins and The
Moviegoer in my classes this semester. Most of the students really
disliked The Moviegoer, and I'm not sure why.I think that it could be my
fault, for having ridden my philosophical hobby horse to hard. I might
have made it more difficult than it had to be (on a sophmore level). Oh
well, live and learn. But I did make one "convert" in my intro to lit
class. He really liked Love in the Ruins and is now reading (on his own!)
The Thanatos Syndrome.
Enough rambling for now.
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"
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