[percy-l] FW: percy's southernness

Garic Barranger nikkibar at aol.com
Wed Oct 21 17:03:18 EDT 2009


The characteristics of being a Southern writer are 1. You should be  
from the Southern United States and 2 You should write. Walker hated  
being referred to that way and always would rather be read as simply a  
writer. That he was Southern was for him incidental and not of great  
importance. Nor is his Catholicism of any characteristic importance.  
Eudora Welty wasn't, nor was Faulkner. Nor am I, although nobody much  
reads my work the way they do with Percy, Welty, or Faulkner. And yet  
by all right I am a Southern writer and I'll fight the man what says  
it isn't so. Or at least smile in sardonic amusement.

Nikki Barranger
On Oct 21, 2009, at 4:40 AM, rizwana banu wrote:

> What exactly are the characteristics of  being a southern writer? Is  
> it difficult or necessary to prove being a white catholic southern  
> writer? How is it different from being a protestant writer and a  
> white anyway?
>
> From: nikkibar at aol.com
> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:41:03 -0500
> Subject: Re: [percy-l] FW: percy's southernness
>
> Dear Rizwana,
>
> It is doubtful whether Uncle Will would have been thought of by his  
> contemporaries as bigoted. Walker certainly wasn't. It would also be  
> a mistake to assume that Southern implies bigotedness. There are  
> lots of folks hereabouts who are not, although sometimes we have to  
> struggle against it. If you want to understand Uncle Will's  
> influence on Walker, reread The Moviegoer. There is therein a  
> beneficent aunt who is a kind of alter ego of uncle Will, someone  
> who stands for the things of the generation before to which we are  
> loyal without surrendering our inner most selves. You might get some  
> further insight into the matter by reading Walker Percy Remembered.  
> I have some trouble figuring what you mean by alienated in your last  
> question. You might read Eudora Welty (particularly her piece about  
> the death of Medgar Evers) and although it may be hard to follow the  
> ironies within the works (many Americans can't) look at Flannery  
> O'Connor, particularly A Good Man Is Hard To Find. It would be  
> difficult to describe Miss Welty as being alienated but if I catch  
> the drift of your question she may fit with what you mean. I hope  
> this doesn't confuse the issue further for you.
>
> Nikki Barranger
> On Oct 20, 2009, at 5:14 AM, rizwana banu wrote:
>
>
>
> From: riz_banu at hotmail.com
> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: percy's southernness
> Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:43:38 +0530
>
> I have been trying to understand Percy's southernness  in terms of  
> his biography, as regards the influence of "Uncle Will" on him. I  
> find that inspite of his upbringing in a upper class southern  
> background he had a mind of his own which went beyond mere class  
> distinctions and vested interests in retaining class distinctions.  
> Percy was able to see clearly the two sides of the coin as regards  
> the civil war, not as a defeat of the South but as one of a  
> particular class of society. Percy with his southern roots of  
> aristocracy was yet not bigoted. He seems to be a minority within  
> his own circle. Who are the other southern novelists during the  
> period from 1960s to 1990s or even contemporary novelists who seem  
> to be alienated/unique in their understanding within their own group?
>
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