An English teacher put The Moviegoer in my hands two summers ago. Last summer I read The Last Gentleman, and this summer I just finished The Second Coming. Walker Percy and T.S. Eliot seem to have diagnosed our century quite correctly: it is a living death. Nonetheless, there is hope.
Will Barrett had to make a conscious decision to reject this living death, and The Second Coming ends with his redemption. He threw his father's weapons of suicide off the cliff, put his hands and mind to good use, and pursued the simple joys of a new marriage. His final statement to the Catholic priest seems to be a Kierkegaardian leap of faith. It reminds me of the father of suffering boy in Mark 9 who said: "Lord, I believe. Help me in my unbelief!" Percy didn't have Will quite say it quite that way, but that's what I think he meant.