From lauren.stacy.berdy at gmail.com Fri Feb 1 12:43:32 2019 From: lauren.stacy.berdy at gmail.com (Lauren Berdy) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2019 12:43:32 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] =?utf-8?q?Walker_Percy=3A_We_Still_Live_Within_the_Med?= =?utf-8?q?iated=2C_Alienated_World_of_=E2=80=9CThe_Moviegoer=E2=80=9D?= In-Reply-To: References: <306621029.3174360.1548801367766@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0AC5D242-00CD-4B40-B50F-B5893DBEFBD8@gmail.com> What we are losing In everything we ?think? we know about Dr Percy he thought Mans ?possible? transmission can only take place thru a higher power For the Dr no one can transform themself he cannot see his own nothingness It?s what interested this reader most Also language plays a huge role What?s the language of a new day? If you hear it it?s a quick change, not an idea Sent from my iPad > On Jan 29, 2019, at 8:06 PM, Marshall Smith wrote: > > He would probably have a rueful laugh at your attempt to be politically evenhanded while advancing a Knothead Trump agenda. Then he would hold forth about how political language is evacuated of meaning. Then he might have a drink of bourbon, neat. > > Marshall > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jan 29, 2019, at 2:36 PM, janetcantor37 at yahoo.com wrote: >> >> My biggest wonder is what Percy would make of the dislocations of our society today. >> Does anyone here ever ponder how Percy would consider the extremes of twitter or the main stream media in their search and destroy missions? >> Wouldn't it be funny to read Percy's take on current events? >> >> The ease with which Senators and journalists feel justified as they destroy a man's name without any corroboration just because it fits their political need of the moment, the early morning raid of a private citizen's house, conveniently captured by CNN television cameras, when the authorities could just as easily asked him to turn himself in, the delight of using destructive rhetoric even if it means the death of policemen or private citizens, the way one day Russia is not a problem, but a president who wants to stop communism is the problem, but now Russia is turned into evil inc. - things like this are so ready for satire. >> The double standards of who is behaving badly depending on who is in power at the moment... >> >> Do others ever think about these questions? >> >> How valuable a Percy novel about our time would be for us! >> >> Janet Cantor >> >> >> >> >> On Tuesday, January 29, 2019, 4:14:38 PM EST, Jim Forest wrote: >> >> >> www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/we-still-live-within-the-mediated-alienated-world-of-the-moviegoer >> >> The New Yorker / January 2, 2019 >> >> We Still Live Within the Mediated, Alienated World of ?The Moviegoer? >> >> By Paul Elie >> >> That it isn?t really about movies is the first surprise. Binx Bolling, the novel?s main character, is only an occasional moviegoer, both by the standards of postwar America (when Martin Scorsese would see a movie a day) and those of the present, when many of us spend most of our time looking at one screen or another. >> >> ?The Moviegoer? isn?t really about movies, and yet the title remains unexpectedly apt, just as it was when the novel, published in 1961, became a surprise winner of the National Book Award and made a sudden Southern eminence of its author, Walker Percy, a nonpracticing physician and self-taught philosopher in early middle age. It?s apt because it moves the novel (and our expectations for the novel) out of the South. It intimates that this novel, set in New Orleans, the region?s most storied city, isn?t about history or legacy, isn?t about place at all: it?s about how we see things?a novel of perception and sensibility, dealing with the search for authenticity in a scripted, stylized, mediated world. >> >> Percy?s contemporary Flannery O?Connor characterized the literature of the American South at midcentury as set against the typical. In O?Connor?s view, there was no typical Southern novel, and that was a good thing; for her, the best Southern novel was atypical just as life in the South (in her time, as she saw it) was atypical of American life as a whole. The Southern novel she celebrated takes unusual, extreme, even grotesque, behavior as its starting point. Such a novel is rooted, she explained, in ?some experience which we are not accustomed to observe every day, or which the ordinary man may never experience in his ordinary life. .?.?. Yet the characters have an inner coherence, if not always a coherence to their social framework. Their fictional qualities lean away from typical social patterns, toward mystery and the unexpected.? >> >> ?As I Lay Dying,? and ?Wise Blood,? and later ?A Confederacy of Dunces? and ?The Color Purple? and ?Fishboy?: these novels are fiercely atypical. But the originality of ?The Moviegoer? is more paradoxical than theirs. Unlike the novels of the South that have something of the heightened quality that came to be called gothic, ?The Moviegoer? becomes atypical through its scrutiny of the typical. It takes ordinary experience??everydayness,? Binx calls it?and makes it the subject of fitful philosophical inquiry. It promises a typical moviegoer but delivers the inimitable Binx. It calls literary categories to mind by leaning away from them. >> >> ?The Moviegoer? makes scant reference to the Civil War, to racial conflict, to old houses and barrel-aged whiskey and the notion of the South as a place where people sit around telling tall tales on front porches, whose ?tragic? history somehow binds them together. It?s a novel of New Orleans where the protagonist winds up missing Mardi Gras for a stockbrokers? convention in Chicago. >> >> It?s a Catholic novel (the main action takes place in the days before Ash Wednesday), and yet one whose protagonist considers himself not much of a Catholic at all, but a skeptic whose ?unbelief was invincible from the beginning??who tells us, ?I have only to hear the word God and a curtain comes down in my head.? >> >> It?s a distinctly American novel, but one that stands apart from the main line from Hawthorne to Twain to James and Wharton and then to Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Cather?the double helix of innocents at home and innocents abroad. Its key antecedents are the European existentialists Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus?the latter two of whom were also important for Ralph Ellison, who drew inspiration from them a decade before Percy, in writing ?Invisible Man.? >> >> It?s a novel of the search??the pilgrim?s search outside himself, rather than the guru?s search within,? Percy liked to say?but without the usual signposting. There?s no journey to a strange culture, no savvy guide, no sloughing off of one self and the taking on of another; no raft and river, no feasting or fasting, no new world at the end of the journey. There?s just the ?everydayness? of Binx?s life in New Orleans and the slight diversion of an overnight train ride. >> >> It?s a coming-of-age novel, but one whose protagonist is nearly twice the age of Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield. Binx is about to turn thirty, an age by which American men of midcentury were expected to have settled into their adult lives. He is a college graduate, a veteran, a stocks-and-bonds broker?and yet his self is ?left over,? as Percy put it in an essay. Nearing thirty, Binx is gripped by ?the possibility of the search? as if for the first time. The novel was a surprise even to its author. As he wrote it, Percy, like Binx, was forced out of himself and compelled to court, as O?Connor wrote, ?mystery and the unexpected? as never before. >> >> In outline, Percy?s early life was more atypical than that of any character he created. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1916, the eldest of three sons in a prosperous family of planters, lawyers, and politicians. When Percy was thirteen, his father committed suicide (as his father had done before him). Two years later, his mother died in a car accident that was thought by some to have been an act of self-harm. Percy and his brothers, LeRoy and Phinizy, had gone to Greenville, Mississippi, to live with his father?s cousin, William Alexander Percy, and there Walker Percy fell under the spell of this Southern man of the manor, whom he and his brothers called Uncle Will. Educated at Sewanee and Harvard Law School, a veteran of the Great War, a bachelor, religiously inclined, Uncle Will ran the plantation, presided over the civic life of Greenville, wrote poetry, exulted in orchestral music and opera, and served, Percy recalled, as ?something of a spokesman for the South.? And he raised the three orphaned Percys in the spirit of the questions he liked to pose: ?What do you love? What do you live by?? >> >> In part to get out of the great man?s shadow, Percy went north and east: to the University of North Carolina (where he was a steady moviegoer) and then to Columbia University?s medical school, in upper Manhattan. Drawn to the study of the causes of disease more than to the care of patients, he followed a course in medical pathology. As the Second World War began, he interned at Bellevue Hospital, notorious as the place where the city?s destitute were tended to?and there he contracted tuberculosis. At sanatoriums in Connecticut and upstate New York, he followed the regimen of rest and fresh air that was the nearest thing to a cure for the disease. As his TB went into remission, he began to imagine that he could pursue a career as a writer rather than as a medical doctor. ?I was in bed so much, alone so much, that I had nothing to do but read and think,? he recalled. ?I began to question everything I had once believed.? Reading Thomas Mann, Sartre, and Kierkegaard, Percy came to see the novelist as a diagnostician and the novel?the philosophical novel?as a tool with which to probe the pathology of the modern world. >> >> Religion became another instrument. Out of the sanatorium, prompted by conversations with a Catholic fellow-convalescent and recently made aware (through William Alexander Percy?s late-in-life autobiography, ?Lanterns on the Levee?) of Uncle Will?s strong attraction to Catholicism, Percy himself was drawn to the church. He had fallen in love with a nurse he knew in New Orleans, Mary Bernice Townsend, and they were married in a Baptist church; and then he and Bunt, as she was called, converted to Catholicism and settled in Louisiana, first in New Orleans and then in the burgeoning suburb of Covington, across Lake Pontchartrain. Why the turn to religion? The reason, Percy later said, was that he saw Catholicism as true, and its truths as standards by which to measure and assess the problems he saw with life in the twentieth century. >> >> Ten years passed. Percy and Bunt adopted a baby girl, and Bunt gave birth to another girl. Percy, living on inheritances, worked at being a writer. He wrote two novels, each a Southern bildungsroman: ?one a bad imitation of Thomas Mann,? he later said, ?the other a worse imitation of Thomas Wolfe?which is very bad indeed.? Inspired by the postwar philosophers Gabriel Marcel (a French Catholic) and Susanne K. Langer, he began to write philosophical essays, using them to puzzle out quandaries of everyday life?such as those of the businessman-commuter in the essay he called ?The Man on the Train.? The essays, strong and strange, were published in quarterlies of literature and philosophy, and few people read them. >> >> The Percys? younger daughter, Ann, was deaf, and they placed her in a day school for students with hearing impairments in New Orleans. Percy bought a small house nearby, in the Uptown district, where he spent time during the school day. There, away from his library, his immediate family, his history, his personal story of death and loss, disease and rejuvenation, he came up with the character of John Bickerson Bolling and a loose narrative he called ?Confessions of a Movie-Goer.? >> >> A literary agent sent the manuscript to a junior editor in New York, Stanley Kauffmann, who was also the movie critic for The New Republic. Kauffmann abbreviated the title and edited the text thoroughly?sharpening the quick cuts, juxtapositions, non sequiturs, and sudden shifts of topic and tonal register that give Binx?s narration, and the novel, its distinctive style. >> >> Published in 1961, lightly publicized, little noticed, ?The Moviegoer? found its way to A. J. Liebling, The New Yorker writer, who had written a biography of the Louisiana governor Earl Long and was steeped in the culture and flavor of New Orleans. Liebling shared the novel with his wife, the novelist Jean Stafford, who was a judge for the National Book Awards that year, and the novel, not formally nominated, was put up for consideration. It was a strong year for American fiction: J. D. Salinger?s ?Franny and Zooey,? Joseph Heller?s ?Catch-22,? William Maxwell?s ?The Ch?teau,? and Isaac Bashevis Singer?s ?The Spinoza of Market Street? were all nominated. The award went to ?The Moviegoer.? Percy, accepting the prize in New York, framed the novel in terms he had explored in his essays (and which he would develop for the rest of his career): the sickness of modern Western society, the loss of the sense of the self, the role of the writer as diagnostician. Concluding, he made his most vital point indirectly: ?In short, the book attempts a modest restatement of the Judeo-Christian notion that man is more than an organism in an environment, more than an integrated personality, more even than a mature and creative individual, as the phrase goes. He is a wayfarer and a pilgrim.? >> >> Percy was a late starter as a novelist, and Binx Bolling is late coming of age, but Percy?s novel of Binx?s coming of age was ahead of its time. With its slack and offhand protagonist, its present-tense narration, its effortless mix of informal speech, images from popular culture, and frank ruminations on the meaning of life, ?The Moviegoer? is, in my estimation, the first work of what we call contemporary American fiction, the earliest novel to render a set of circumstances and an outlook that still feel recognizably ours. >> >> Faulkner once characterized his approach to writing as ?oratory out of solitude.? Of this approach Percy made a new thing altogether. The solitude of ?The Moviegoer? isn?t the solitude of a rebel or an independent, but that of a person who is alone in a crowd?in a movie theatre or on a sidewalk in the French Quarter. The oratory in the book isn?t that of the Bible or of Stoic philosophy or of a Russian novel but of a voice-over?the present-tense monologue of the person who does not tell a story so much as self-consciously offer a running commentary on life as it passes before his eyes. >> >> The present tense of the narration has acted as a preservative in the novel. The manners and everyday details, so closely observed, are noticeably those of another time. Businessmen (no longer called that) no longer wear hats to the office, and their come-ons to their female subordinates are understood as coercive and manipulative, not perks of the job; the ?silent reproaches? Binx discerns from his secretaries are said aloud. African-Americans are no longer confined to the back of the bus or prized patronizingly for their ?devotion? to white people who employ them; Jewish people are no longer reflexively regarded as figures of displacement and exile. Cinemas are no longer called movie houses, and their managers no longer stand under the marquee offering passersby a ?sample look? on a slow night. The trim certainties of the ?Baltimore Catechism? (the stuff of the novel?s epilogue) are now unknown to even the devoutest Catholic child. >> >> And yet for all that, ?The Moviegoer? seems to describe the way we live now, for its affectless protagonist observes a society whose every aspect seems mediated, contrived, statistically anticipated, manipulated in advance, so that direct experience of life can seem as elusive as the experience of God. >> >> Don DeLillo, a novelist of a generation younger than Walker Percy, spoke of the qualities of the novels that emboldened him to write fiction, and fiction of a particular kind. ?There?s a drive and a daring that go beyond technical invention,? he said. ?I think it?s right to call it a life-drive even though these books deal at times very directly with death. No optimism, no pessimism. No homesickness for lost values or for the way fiction used to be written. These books open out onto some larger mystery.? >> >> Southern, Catholic, ironic, oblique: ?The Moviegoer? doesn?t add up, quite. What is it about? What has come of Binx?s search? What has prompted him to settle down with Kate and embrace everydayness with quasi-religious devotion? ?It is impossible to say,? Binx remarks in the last line of the novel proper. It is impossible to say. And yet ?The Moviegoer,? like its central character, has an inner coherence. Its take on everydayness has the quality of wonder that is the novel?s true subject. It opens out onto some larger mystery, one that we, no less than he, are still trying to solve. >> >> Paul Elie, a senior fellow at Georgetown University, is the author of ?The Life You Save May Be Your Own??a group portrait of Walker Percy, Flannery O?Connor, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day?and ?Reinventing Bach. >> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >> >> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >> >> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >> >> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy >> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >> >> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >> >> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >> >> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From michael_serafin at hotmail.com Fri Feb 1 18:23:41 2019 From: michael_serafin at hotmail.com (Michael Serafin) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2019 23:23:41 +0000 Subject: [percy-l] More "Moviegoer" Message-ID: There is a new paperback edition of "Moviegoer" published in January, with an afterword by Paul Elie. I thought I read somewhere that Terence Malick has written a screenplay of "Moviegoer". Considering the kind of films he has been making lately, starting with 'Tree Of Life", he would probably do justice to the novel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 02:31:23 2019 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 02:31:23 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] More "Moviegoer" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <796C3E7D-2655-4A7F-A38E-025B3FBA1ACE@gmail.com> Michael et al, Perhaps this brief transcription might shed some light on Malick and his use of the MG as noted in an earlier Percy-L post on his 2016 release of "Knight of Cups." Quite an amusing anecdote from lead Christian Bale. Did anyone see the movie to comment? Thanks for calling our attention to the new edition of the MG and Paul Elie?s afterword, Michael. Best, Henry Mills Percy-L Administrator ---- Christian Bale hates talking about acting: 'I just want to push a pencil through my eyeball' Audio Interview by Take Two, Southern California Public Radio March 04 2016 Source: https://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2016/03/04/46931/christian-bale-on-acting-life-in-los-angeles-and-h/ While working on "Knight of Cups," Terrence Malik's latest film, Christian Bale didn't have much to work with. "We would get on the set, they're already filming me [and] I don't know what we're doing," said Bale. "The only research that Terry really gave me other than our conversations ? which were extensive ? was the book by Walker Percy, 'The Moviegoer,' where he's on a search for who knows exactly what, but you know you must be on that search. Bale, who's best known for his roles in the Batman series, "The Fighter" and his Oscar-nominated turn in "The Big Short," plays a decidedly different character this time: a screenwriter named Rick that has lost his way, spiritually and emotionally. He spoke to Take Two about the film, which is set in Los Angeles, touching on the director's unique methods, filming with a confused cast, how conversations about acting make him feel and more. On Terrence Malik's style: "He talked about how he wants to start to move towards films where there's just no script whatsoever. Making a film that is more like, more akin to a piece of music or to literature where the audience [have] their own feelings about the film rather than being dictated to about what they should be feeling... A lot of times he loves the fact that you didn't say your lines. It's always just about being absolutely sincere and truthful." ...continue the article and above media at: http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2016/03/04/46931/christian-bale-on-acting-life-in-los-angeles-and-h/ ORIGINAL PERCY-L POST https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/2016-March/002084.html > On Feb 1, 2019, at 6:23 PM, Michael Serafin wrote: > > There is a new paperback edition of "Moviegoer" published in January, with an afterword by Paul Elie. > > I thought I read somewhere that Terence Malick has written a screenplay of "Moviegoer". Considering the kind of films he has been making lately, starting with 'Tree Of Life", he would probably do justice to the novel. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 04:51:25 2019 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2019 04:51:25 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] New Book Announcement: "Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide" (John F. Desmond, 2019) Message-ID: <6895454A-5415-406C-85D2-DA4B34D5B553@gmail.com> Dear Percy-L: We have John Desmond, Professor Emeritus of Whitman College, to thank for yet another book-length inquiry into Percy, this one entitled Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide, available through Catholic University of America Press in hardback (320 pps., Feb., 2019). Below is the catalog description, or you may also access it here: https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/fyodor-dostoevsky-walker-percy-and-the-age-of-suicide-desmond/ With your being a member of the Percy-L community, let me be the first to offer that we, and all Percy-interested parties, are grateful once again for your extensive, career work on Percy, John. Thank you! All best, Henry Mills Percy-L Administrator ------------ Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide is a study of the phenomenon of suicide in modern and post-modern society as represented in the major fictional works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Walker Percy. In his study, suicide is understood in both a literal and spiritual sense as referring to both the actual suicides in their works and to the broader social malaise of spiritual suicide, or despair. In the 19th century Dostoevsky called suicide "the terrible question of our age". For his part, Percy understood 20th century Western culture as "suicidal" in both its social, political and military behavior and in the deeper sense that its citizenry had suffered an ontological "loss of self" or "deformation" of being. Likewise, Thomas Merton called the 20th century an "age of suicide". John Desmond examines the cultural ethos of suicide as it is developed in eleven major works of fiction?Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov; and Percy's The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, Lancelot, The Second Coming and The Thanatos Syndrome. His study is analogical and progressive in that it demonstrates how Percy "furthered" Dostoevsky's prophetic insights and intuitions about suicide as they evolved in modern Western culture. It reveals how the spiritual, moral and ideological conditions that Dostoevsky analyzed in the latter 19th century came to prophetic?and dire?fulfillment in the 20th century, as Percy observed. The study develops its argument through a close analysis of themes, characters, actions and images that reveal both correspondence between and development from Dostoevsky to Percy. In the Epilogue, Desmond offers a Christian counter-vision to the suicidal ethos of the age. About the Author John F. Desmond is the author of Gravity and Grace: Seamus Heaney and the Force of Light; Flannery O'Connor's Vision of History; At the Crossroads: Ethical and Religious Themes in the Writings of Walker Percy, and Walker Percy's Search for Community. Review "This major work boldly analyzes how each novelist charted the perverse self-destructiveness of the modern world and posited a life-affirming alternative in the possibility of Christian salvation." ?Gary Ciuba, author of Walker Percy: Books of Revelation "An early critic of Walker Percy's work called Percy 'The Dostoevsky of the Bayou.' Forays into the links between Percy's works and the great Russian exist, but none as substantive as John Desmond's Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy, and the Age of Suicide. Beset by suicide in his family history, Percy's work can be understood as an attempt to trace the cultural and spiritual absence that make suicide a grim (and everyday) part of the late nineteenth century through our present age. In this effort Dostoevsky serves as Percy's Virgil. Dostoevsky saw in his time the malaise that follows the ascension of the autonomous self, now running rampant in the early twenty-first century. Suicide reveals the spiritual maladies that beset this age, and while the social sciences claim sovereignty over it, Percy, like Dostoevsky, sees suicide as standing beyond whatever social science might provide as a 'cure.' The issue, one could say, is ontological, and attempts at social programs to 'fix it' could paradoxically worsen it. Desmond's lucid analysis underscores the deeper philosophical and spiritual realities that our culture resists. This is a book to be reckoned with." ?Edward J. Dupuy, author of Autobiography in Walker Percy: Repetition, Recovery, and Redemption -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 01:17:54 2019 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 01:17:54 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Test post - ignore Message-ID: <78A799C2-C25F-488F-BC17-E5D381232226@gmail.com> This is a test post. Please ignore. Henry Mills From larsonovic at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 15:23:09 2019 From: larsonovic at gmail.com (Michael Larson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2019 14:23:09 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 145, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I like Terrence Malick, and *Tree of Life* is an especially poignant film, so I was pretty hopeful about *Knight of Cups* when I heard it was based on *The Moviegoer*. Unfortunately, Christian Bale's character is really nothing like Binx, and his search is almost insufferable. He's a quiet, painfully sensitive guy always looking for various women to give him meaning. But alas, none of them is ever quite enough for how sensitive he is, and he just keeps having to find another one. This is all inferred as there is literally no script or definable story line. By contrast, Binx likes his women, of course, but he is also bright enough to know that they are not the end of his search, and he is therefore also mentally healthy enough not to be locked forever in that loop. Just to be clear, I like Christian Bale's acting a lot. The fact that *Knight of Cups* is so vacuous is not his fault. It's Malick's. On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 1:33 PM wrote: > Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to > percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. More "Moviegoer" (Michael Serafin) > 2. Re: More "Moviegoer" (Henry P. Mills) > 3. Re: "Living as an Ex-Suicide" by Jessica Hooten Wilson > (Plemmons, Gregory) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2019 23:23:41 +0000 > From: Michael Serafin > To: "percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org" > Subject: [percy-l] More "Moviegoer" > Message-ID: > < > BN6PR22MB09784715FC0494BB6287B25A93920 at BN6PR22MB0978.namprd22.prod.outlook.com > > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > There is a new paperback edition of "Moviegoer" published in January, with > an afterword by Paul Elie. > > I thought I read somewhere that Terence Malick has written a screenplay of > "Moviegoer". Considering the kind of films he has been making lately, > starting with 'Tree Of Life", he would probably do justice to the novel. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20190201/53fa4458/attachment-0001.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 02:31:23 -0500 > From: "Henry P. Mills" > To: Percy-L > Subject: Re: [percy-l] More "Moviegoer" > Message-ID: <796C3E7D-2655-4A7F-A38E-025B3FBA1ACE at gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Michael et al, > > Perhaps this brief transcription might shed some light on Malick and his > use of the MG as noted in an earlier Percy-L post on his 2016 release of > "Knight of Cups." Quite an amusing anecdote from lead Christian Bale. Did > anyone see the movie to comment? > > Thanks for calling our attention to the new edition of the MG and Paul > Elie?s afterword, Michael. > > Best, > Henry Mills > Percy-L Administrator > > ---- > Christian Bale hates talking about acting: 'I just want to push a pencil > through my eyeball' > Audio Interview by Take Two, Southern California Public Radio > March 04 2016 > Source: > https://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2016/03/04/46931/christian-bale-on-acting-life-in-los-angeles-and-h/ > > While working on "Knight of Cups," Terrence Malik's latest film, > Christian Bale didn't have much to work with. > > "We would get on the set, they're already filming me [and] I don't know > what we're doing," said Bale. "The only research that Terry really gave > me other than our conversations ? which were extensive ? was the book by > Walker Percy, 'The Moviegoer,' where he's on a search for who knows > exactly what, but you know you must be on that search. > > Bale, who's best known for his roles in the Batman series, "The Fighter" > and his Oscar-nominated turn in "The Big Short," plays a decidedly > different character this time: a screenwriter named Rick that has lost > his way, spiritually and emotionally. > > He spoke to Take Two about the film, which is set in Los Angeles, > touching on the director's unique methods, filming with a confused cast, > how conversations about acting make him feel and more. > > On Terrence Malik's style: > > "He talked about how he wants to start to move towards films where > there's just no script whatsoever. Making a film that is more like, more > akin to a piece of music or to literature where the audience [have] > their own feelings about the film rather than being dictated to about > what they should be feeling... A lot of times he loves the fact that you > didn't say your lines. It's always just about being absolutely sincere > and truthful." > > ...continue the article and above media at: > > http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2016/03/04/46931/christian-bale-on-acting-life-in-los-angeles-and-h/ > > > ORIGINAL PERCY-L POST > https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/2016-March/002084.html > > > > > > > > On Feb 1, 2019, at 6:23 PM, Michael Serafin > wrote: > > > > There is a new paperback edition of "Moviegoer" published in January, > with an afterword by Paul Elie. > > > > I thought I read somewhere that Terence Malick has written a screenplay > of "Moviegoer". Considering the kind of films he has been making lately, > starting with 'Tree Of Life", he would probably do justice to the novel. > > > > > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20190205/569de66e/attachment-0001.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2018 12:50:19 +0000 > From: "Plemmons, Gregory" > To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] "Living as an Ex-Suicide" by Jessica Hooten > Wilson > Message-ID: > < > 5EC8B5055FCBD04E8197CAD3EA5A1FB04EB23185 at ITS-HCWNEM104.ds.vanderbilt.edu> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" > > Thanks for posting, Henry. > > > Tonight, I happened upon a video promoting the new PBS series The Great > American Read featuring the young adult author John Green (link here: > https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/a70ef29d-b06a-4f15-8a49-2d398b9e0444/the-great-gatsby-part-1-crash-course-english-literature-104/? > ). While none of Percy?s novels made the top 100, watching the video, I had > to smile on seeing The Last Gentleman atop a stack of books (screencap > attached). I have no idea if this was Green?s idea or the producer?s, but > it has struck me at times how Green, despite his YA label, is in many ways > a worthy heir to Percy?s spirit, as he has explored many themes common to > Percy throughout his novels, his protagonists often akin to Binx Bolling or > Will Barrett. For those of you who may not be familiar with his work, his > first novel (Looking For Alaska) examined a high school suicide with grief, > hope, and search for meaning. Green wrote his sixth (arguably his most > famous) novel The Fault In Our Stars after he in > terned for a year as a children?s hospital chaplain. And his latest, > Turtles All The Way Down, is in some ways his most autobiographical, as he > explores mental illness and depression and has been candid about his own > struggles. Green's ability to finesse melancholy and humor have always > reminded me of Percy, and his novels, like Percy?s, are never driven > primarily by plot. Anyhow, when I saw The Last Gentleman perched next to > him, it got me wondering if any other Percy fans have read him. If you > haven?t, he?s worth a look. > > Gregory Plemmons > > ________________________________ > From: Percy-L [percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] on behalf of Marshall > Smith [mhsmithjrlaw at gmail.com] > Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2018 8:07 PM > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Subject: Re: [percy-l] "Living as an Ex-Suicide" by Jessica Hooten Wilson > > I have always marveled at the way Percy wrote about suicide > philosophically and matter of factly at the same time. It?s obvious in his > writing that he had a terrible familiarity with it but had also thought > about the philosophical/moral/religious implications deeply for many years. > > Marshall > Sent from my iPhone > > On Jun 20, 2018, at 2:33 AM, Henry P. Mills wppdirector at gmail.com>> wrote: > > Dear Percy-L: > > For the group's reading and reflection. Certainly the recent suicides of > Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade reveal how millions can be affected by the > suicides of but two of us. Percy himself once remarked how he was at the > time the only one in multiple generations in his family lineage to live > beyond 70 due repeated suicides in his family. > > ***Jessica Hooten Wilson is an associate professor of literature and > creative writing at John Brown University. She is the author of three > books, including Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky & the Search for Influence > and Reading Walker Percy's Novels.*** > > All best, > Henry Mills > Percy-L Administrator > > > -------Living as an Ex-Suicide > by JESSICA HOOTEN WILSON< > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.libertylawsite.org%2Fauthor%2Fjessica-hooten-wilson%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cgregory.plemmons%40vanderbilt.edu%7C6ec1a8da774c46bf9d7508d5d71370c9%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636651400848491095&sdata=FNtjonSpt9vw%2FdWXUry11zPccTo2IQ6fsJRlJwU%2FdFU%3D&reserved=0 > > > JUNE 15, 2018 > > Opening paragraphs: > ?The only cure for depression is suicide.? Walker Percy was not joking > when he penned this line. The author himself was a survivor of > suicide?though he did not attempt it. His grandfather and father both shot > themselves at home; his mother either intentionally or not drove off of a > bridge and drowned; and the first American Percy, Charles Percy, tied a > kettle to his neck and also drowned. > Unlike his ancestors, Walker Percy lived a full life and died of prostate > cancer at 74 years old. Why did they die but he lived? Because Percy chose > to be a survivor, to find out not only why his father took his own life, > but, as he put it, ?to make damn sure it didn?t happen to [him].? This > determination fueled his work. Percy wrote novel after novel trying to > solve what Albert Camus called the only philosophical question, to be or > not to be?. > > http://www.libertylawsite.org/2018/06/15/living-as-an-ex-suicide-walker-percy/ > < > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.libertylawsite.org%2F2018%2F06%2F15%2Fliving-as-an-ex-suicide-walker-percy%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cgregory.plemmons%40vanderbilt.edu%7C6ec1a8da774c46bf9d7508d5d71370c9%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636651400848491095&sdata=knCzy73RGN0ldLEmmQ4JVJEvQZOQkdIH52ILLJqCkw8%3D&reserved=0 > > > > > > > > > > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > < > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.ibiblio.org%2Fpipermail%2Fpercy-l%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cgregory.plemmons%40vanderbilt.edu%7C6ec1a8da774c46bf9d7508d5d71370c9%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636651400848491095&sdata=KH%2BgzldloXi0PbNiV%2FCmuMR6FZ2ifWELeEaR1Y5IiRk%3D&reserved=0 > > > > * Manage Your Membership: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l< > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.ibiblio.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fpercy-l&data=02%7C01%7Cgregory.plemmons%40vanderbilt.edu%7C6ec1a8da774c46bf9d7508d5d71370c9%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636651400848491095&sdata=RRMlGBqClxxrg%2FZrbztgJkAfO4hKgzP3VJGFJVWzZko%3D&reserved=0 > > > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org< > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.ibiblio.org&data=02%7C01%7Cgregory.plemmons%40vanderbilt.edu%7C6ec1a8da774c46bf9d7508d5d71370c9%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636651400848491095&sdata=7qKzOI9CVghNrMX%2FVFCxh8npR6pudIryOM2yS%2BzrY04%3D&reserved=0 > > > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy< > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibiblio.org%2Fwpercy&data=02%7C01%7Cgregory.plemmons%40vanderbilt.edu%7C6ec1a8da774c46bf9d7508d5d71370c9%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636651400848491095&sdata=YzB3wQWBWU%2F9PIsNe2c7OsNlx%2Fu%2FBXKyFYEk1jMh0vY%3D&reserved=0 > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20180621/75947696/attachment.html > > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: john_green_percy.jpg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 300917 bytes > Desc: john_green_percy.jpg > URL: < > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20180621/75947696/attachment.jpg > > > > ------------------------------ > > Subject: Digest Footer > > _______________________________________________ > Percy-L mailing list > Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org > https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > > ------------------------------ > > End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 145, Issue 2 > *************************************** > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Sat Feb 16 10:02:07 2019 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2019 10:02:07 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Announcement: 6th Annual Walker Percy Weekend, St. Francisville, La. (May 31-June 2) Message-ID: <293BBA4A-0C2B-495F-AB7A-14E73470F987@gmail.com> Dear Percy-L: The 6th Annual Walker Percy Weekend is upon us come May 31. Below, you can read about its current line-up of events and speakers. This year's slate of speakers is quite alluring in its national selections. Notables, among others, include David Brooks of the NYT, celebrated biographer Walter Isaacson, and Tom Key, who is known for his adaptations of two of Percy's books to professional theater. You may access further information at www.walkerpercyweekend.org. Bourbon and crawfish will be served in abundance. All best Percy wishes, Henry Mills Percy-L Administrator, The Walker Percy Project www.ibiblio.org/wpercy ------------------------------------------------------ The summertime festival celebrates the life and legacy of the acclaimed author in St. Francisville . J.D. VANCE, DAVID BROOKS, WALTER ISAACSON, AMONG WRITERS PARTICIPATING IN 6TH ANNUAL SUMMER LITERARY FESTIVAL May 31 - June 2, 2019, St. Francisville, La "To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair," wrote acclaimed author Walker Percy. With David Brooks, J.D. Vance, and Walter Isaacson among presenters attending the 2019 Walker Percy Weekend, NOTgetting tickets early will be grounds for despair, because the sixth annual festival looks sure to be the biggest, and most exciting, yet. Buy Tickets Now! 2019 Presenters ? DAVID BROOKS is a columnist for The New York Times and author of many bestselling books. His next book, The Second Mountain: The Quest For A Moral Life, will be published in April 2019. ? J.D. VANCE is author of Hillbilly Elegy, a bestselling 2016 memoir about growing up poor in Appalachia. The book is soon to become a major motion picture directed by Ron Howard. ? WALTER ISAACSON is a journalist and author who has written biographies of Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Henry Kissinger. Mr. Isaacson will talk about Walker Percy's "Theory of Hurricanes and Everyday Life." ? JESSICA HOOTEN WILSON teaches literature and humanities at John Brown University. Over the years she has emerged as one of the most popular presenters at Walker Percy Weekend. ? TOM KEY is an Atlanta theatre director and playwright who adapted Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and Lost In The Cosmos for the stage. He will speak on the meaning of Lost In The Cosmos for contemporary American culture, and the role of art -- particularly theatre -- in building community in a fragmenting society. ? ROD DREHER is a West Feliciana native and author of two New York Times bestsellers, including The Benedict Option (2017) and his memoir about growing up in West Feliciana, and "The Little Way of Ruthie Leming" (2013). Schedule Highlights ? A Friday evening "Lost Under the Oaks Gala" reception and cocktail party staged under majestic oaks. ? A Saturday series of Lectures and Panel Discussions on themes explored in Percy's books , ? A Saturday-afternoon Progressive Front-Porch Tour and Bourbon Tasting inspired by Percy's essay on drinking Bourbon, Neat . Must be 21 or over to attend. ? Saturday evening Crawfish Boil: Back by popular demand: The authentic Louisiana crawfish boil including cash bar with selection of local craft beers. Registration & Tickets Access All Areas: An all-inclusive ticket is available for $ 225.00. Social Tickets: A ticket providing access to all social events?the Friday night cocktail party and dinner, and Saturday's Bourbon Tour and Crawfish Boil. No panels included. $ 160.00 Individual Tickets: Tickets to attend individual events including lectures and panel discussions, the Lost Under the Oaks cocktail party, Bourbon Tour, and Crawfish and Craft Beer events will be available May 1 if space remains. In the past, tickets sold out weeks in advance. Cancellations & Refunds * There will be a $25 (per order) cancellation fee charged on refunds issued between April 1 and May 19, 2019. No refunds after May 19th, 2019. Information To learn more and for accommodation information, visit www.walkerpercyweekend.org or email info at walkerpercyweekend.org . Full schedule at www.walkerpercyweekend.org Walker Percy (1916?1990) wrote novels that explored the ?dislocation of man in the modern age.? Most of his work was set in New Orleans and around South Louisiana, including the semi-fictitious Feliciana, which the author based upon West Feliciana and the other Florida parishes. Percy?s debut novel, THE MOVIEGOER, won the National Book Award for Fiction, and was included on Time magazine?s list of the 100 Best English language novels from 1923?2005. In later works, including LOVE IN THE RUINS, THE LAST GENTLEMAN, and THE THANATOS SYNDROME, Percy continued exploring the search for meaning in an increasingly materialistic society via masterfully wrought tales delivered with a poetic Southern sensibility and informed by the author?s deep Catholic faith. Festival proceeds support the JULIUS FREYHAN FOUNDATION ?dedicated to restoring the historic Freyhan School building to serve as a community and cultural center for West Feliciana Parish. Thanks to our Sponsors! Nancy Vinci | Paul Burns Tommy Bell - Stifel | Julie & Mitch Brashier | Conundrum Bookstore | Couhig Partners, llc. | James Dart & David Parker | Noelle and Sam LeBlanc | Polly and Conville Lemoine | Betsy & Christophe Levasseur | Ang?le Parlange | Richards Honda | Carly and Adam Whatley | Stephen Wesley | Janice Wynn The Walker Percy Weekend is presented by the Julius Freyhan Foundation, P.O. Box 1636, St. Francisville, LA, 70775 www.freyhanfoundation.org If you would prefer not to receive future emails about this event, please unsubscribe using the link below. ??Like? Like ??Forward? Forward Preferences | Unsubscribe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WPWLogo2019-01.png Type: image/png Size: 37222 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WPWLogoBlock-9900000000079e3c.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 6630 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: facebook.png Type: image/png Size: 516 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: youtube.png Type: image/png Size: 870 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: website.png Type: image/png Size: 843 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: fblike-icon at 2x.png Type: image/png Size: 164 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: forward-icon at 2x.png Type: image/png Size: 402 bytes Desc: not available URL: From wppdirector at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 21:05:36 2019 From: wppdirector at gmail.com (Henry P. Mills) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 21:05:36 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Walker Percy before Walker Percy (short essay) Message-ID: Dear Percy-L, An interesting short read on the "need to hear about Walker Percy before he was Walker Percy." Best wishes, Henry Mills -- An existentialist's companion: Walker Percy Casey McCorry, Angelus News Feb. 4, 2019 "Before Walker Percy was an award-winning author, before he was exploring the ?dislocation of man in the modern age? or questioning southern sensibility in praise-garnering pages, he was a man not unlike many of us: wandering, depressed, studying for a career he didn?t want to have in the midst of a quarter-life crisis?" continued at: https://angelusnews.com/news/casey-mccorry/an-existentialists-companion-walker-percy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lowry.charles at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 22:44:30 2019 From: lowry.charles at gmail.com (Charles Lowry) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:44:30 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Walker Percy before Walker Percy (short essay) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ms. McCorry states as a quite ordinary fact that both of Percy?s parents committed suicide. While the case of his father is clear, I have always thought that there was some ambiguity about the instance of his mother. This is especially the case because of the presence of one of the boys in the car with her. I am no scholar or academic, so it is entirely possible that I missed a consensus that formed without my participation. When I first became interested in Percy, the conventional wisdom?I must have read it a dozen times, including in the standard biographies by Jay Tolson and Fr. Samway?was that his father was a suicide and his mother may or may not have committed suicide. There are, I suppose, two questions: (1) Did Walker Percy himself ever express an opinion on the circumstances of his mother?s death? (2) Is it now universally held that Walker Percy?s mother committed suicide? Trying to keep up...... Chuck Lowry Brooklyn, NY On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:05 PM Henry P. Mills wrote: > Dear Percy-L, > An interesting short read on the "need to hear about Walker Percy before > he was Walker Percy." > Best wishes, Henry Mills > > *--* > *An existentialist's companion: Walker Percy * > *Casey McCorry, Angelus News* > *Feb. 4, 2019* > > "Before Walker Percy was an award-winning author, before he was exploring > the ?dislocation of man in the modern age? or questioning southern > sensibility in praise-garnering pages, he was a man not unlike many of us: > wandering, depressed, studying for a career he didn?t want to have in the > midst of a quarter-life crisis?" > > continued at: > > https://angelusnews.com/news/casey-mccorry/an-existentialists-companion-walker-percy > > > > > > > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > * Manage Your Membership: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From honeyjbc at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 22:57:36 2019 From: honeyjbc at gmail.com (Janet) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:57:36 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Walker Percy before Walker Percy (short essay) Message-ID: <5c7367b1.1c69fb81.5cdcc.e517@mx.google.com> That was always my impression as well. It was never asserted as fact as far as I understood that his mother committed suicide, only that Walker Percy's history had lots of deaths in the family, some suicides included. The cause of his mother's death in the car was ambiguous. On Feb 24, 2019 10:44 PM, Charles Lowry wrote: > > Ms. McCorry states as a quite ordinary fact that both of Percy?s parents committed suicide.? While the case of his father is clear, I have always thought that there was some ambiguity about the instance of his mother.? This is especially the case because of the presence of one of the boys in the car with her. > > I am no scholar or academic, so it is entirely possible that I missed a consensus that formed without my participation.? When I first became interested in Percy, the conventional wisdom?I must have read it a dozen times, including in the standard biographies by Jay Tolson and Fr. Samway?was that his father was a suicide and his mother may or may not have committed suicide.? There are, I suppose, two questions: (1) Did Walker Percy himself ever express an opinion on the circumstances of his mother?s death? ?(2) Is it now universally held that Walker Percy?s mother committed suicide? > > Trying to keep up...... > > Chuck Lowry > Brooklyn, NY > > On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:05 PM Henry P. Mills wrote: >> >> Dear Percy-L,? >> An interesting short read on the "need to hear about Walker Percy before he was Walker Percy."? >> Best wishes, Henry Mills >> >> -- >> An existentialist's companion: Walker Percy? >> Casey McCorry, Angelus News ? >> Feb. 4, 2019 >> >> "Before Walker Percy was an award-winning author, before he was exploring the ?dislocation of man in the modern age? or questioning southern sensibility in praise-garnering pages, he was a man not unlike many of us: wandering, depressed, studying for a career he didn?t want to have in the midst of a quarter-life crisis?" >> >> continued at:? >> https://angelusnews.com/news/casey-mccorry/an-existentialists-companion-walker-percy >> >> >> >> >> >> >> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >> >> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >> >> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >> >> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com Sun Feb 24 23:12:09 2019 From: rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com (RHONDA MCDONNELL) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 04:12:09 +0000 Subject: [percy-l] Walker Percy before Walker Percy (short essay) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Chuck, I had the very same thought. It seemed there was a bit of editorializing going on there, a bit of working the edges of the facts to present a particular view. But perhaps that was just me overreacting. Rhonda Sent from my iPhone On Feb 24, 2019, at 8:44 PM, Charles Lowry > wrote: Ms. McCorry states as a quite ordinary fact that both of Percy?s parents committed suicide. While the case of his father is clear, I have always thought that there was some ambiguity about the instance of his mother. This is especially the case because of the presence of one of the boys in the car with her. I am no scholar or academic, so it is entirely possible that I missed a consensus that formed without my participation. When I first became interested in Percy, the conventional wisdom?I must have read it a dozen times, including in the standard biographies by Jay Tolson and Fr. Samway?was that his father was a suicide and his mother may or may not have committed suicide. There are, I suppose, two questions: (1) Did Walker Percy himself ever express an opinion on the circumstances of his mother?s death? (2) Is it now universally held that Walker Percy?s mother committed suicide? Trying to keep up...... Chuck Lowry Brooklyn, NY On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:05 PM Henry P. Mills > wrote: Dear Percy-L, An interesting short read on the "need to hear about Walker Percy before he was Walker Percy." Best wishes, Henry Mills -- An existentialist's companion: Walker Percy Casey McCorry, Angelus News Feb. 4, 2019 "Before Walker Percy was an award-winning author, before he was exploring the ?dislocation of man in the modern age? or questioning southern sensibility in praise-garnering pages, he was a man not unlike many of us: wandering, depressed, studying for a career he didn?t want to have in the midst of a quarter-life crisis?" continued at: https://angelusnews.com/news/casey-mccorry/an-existentialists-companion-walker-percy * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jp at jlarsp.com Mon Feb 25 10:25:40 2019 From: jp at jlarsp.com (John Pearson) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 09:25:40 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Walker Percy before Walker Percy (short essay) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I also had the same thought. I have to believe that if there was a new understanding of the historical evidence, someone on this list would know about it. I thought about emailing Casey McCorry to ask her, but I didn?t see an email link on the page. My guess is that it is a short piece and this was an easy shorthand way of addressing the issue without having more space to go into detail. (I just hope this doesn?t lead to others quoting McCorry as evidence that both Percy?s parents committed suicide.) John > On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:12 PM, RHONDA MCDONNELL wrote: > > Chuck, I had the very same thought. It seemed there was a bit of editorializing going on there, a bit of working the edges of the facts to present a particular view. But perhaps that was just me overreacting. > > Rhonda > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Feb 24, 2019, at 8:44 PM, Charles Lowry > wrote: > >> Ms. McCorry states as a quite ordinary fact that both of Percy?s parents committed suicide. While the case of his father is clear, I have always thought that there was some ambiguity about the instance of his mother. This is especially the case because of the presence of one of the boys in the car with her. >> >> I am no scholar or academic, so it is entirely possible that I missed a consensus that formed without my participation. When I first became interested in Percy, the conventional wisdom?I must have read it a dozen times, including in the standard biographies by Jay Tolson and Fr. Samway?was that his father was a suicide and his mother may or may not have committed suicide. There are, I suppose, two questions: (1) Did Walker Percy himself ever express an opinion on the circumstances of his mother?s death? (2) Is it now universally held that Walker Percy?s mother committed suicide? >> >> Trying to keep up...... >> >> Chuck Lowry >> Brooklyn, NY >> >> On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:05 PM Henry P. Mills > wrote: >> Dear Percy-L, >> An interesting short read on the "need to hear about Walker Percy before he was Walker Percy." >> Best wishes, Henry Mills >> >> -- >> An existentialist's companion: Walker Percy >> Casey McCorry, Angelus News >> Feb. 4, 2019 >> >> "Before Walker Percy was an award-winning author, before he was exploring the ?dislocation of man in the modern age? or questioning southern sensibility in praise-garnering pages, he was a man not unlike many of us: wandering, depressed, studying for a career he didn?t want to have in the midst of a quarter-life crisis?" >> >> continued at: >> https://angelusnews.com/news/casey-mccorry/an-existentialists-companion-walker-percy >> >> >> >> >> >> >> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >> >> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >> >> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >> >> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy >> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >> >> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >> >> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >> >> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lauren.stacy.berdy at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 12:19:33 2019 From: lauren.stacy.berdy at gmail.com (Lauren Berdy) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:19:33 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Walker Percy before Walker Percy (short essay) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3F279BBD-A3AB-4A8A-B851-8B4655A4E8FF@gmail.com> I read it twice The gymnastics in my head say He had a predicated vision Dr Percy?s unfolding is a mystery As is ours Let doubt rule Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 25, 2019, at 10:25 AM, John Pearson wrote: > > I also had the same thought. I have to believe that if there was a new understanding of the historical evidence, someone on this list would know about it. I thought about emailing Casey McCorry to ask her, but I didn?t see an email link on the page. My guess is that it is a short piece and this was an easy shorthand way of addressing the issue without having more space to go into detail. (I just hope this doesn?t lead to others quoting McCorry as evidence that both Percy?s parents committed suicide.) > > John > >> On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:12 PM, RHONDA MCDONNELL wrote: >> >> Chuck, I had the very same thought. It seemed there was a bit of editorializing going on there, a bit of working the edges of the facts to present a particular view. But perhaps that was just me overreacting. >> >> Rhonda >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Feb 24, 2019, at 8:44 PM, Charles Lowry wrote: >> >>> Ms. McCorry states as a quite ordinary fact that both of Percy?s parents committed suicide. While the case of his father is clear, I have always thought that there was some ambiguity about the instance of his mother. This is especially the case because of the presence of one of the boys in the car with her. >>> >>> I am no scholar or academic, so it is entirely possible that I missed a consensus that formed without my participation. When I first became interested in Percy, the conventional wisdom?I must have read it a dozen times, including in the standard biographies by Jay Tolson and Fr. Samway?was that his father was a suicide and his mother may or may not have committed suicide. There are, I suppose, two questions: (1) Did Walker Percy himself ever express an opinion on the circumstances of his mother?s death? (2) Is it now universally held that Walker Percy?s mother committed suicide? >>> >>> Trying to keep up...... >>> >>> Chuck Lowry >>> Brooklyn, NY >>> >>>> On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:05 PM Henry P. Mills wrote: >>>> Dear Percy-L, >>>> An interesting short read on the "need to hear about Walker Percy before he was Walker Percy." >>>> Best wishes, Henry Mills >>>> >>>> -- >>>> An existentialist's companion: Walker Percy >>>> Casey McCorry, Angelus News >>>> Feb. 4, 2019 >>>> >>>> "Before Walker Percy was an award-winning author, before he was exploring the ?dislocation of man in the modern age? or questioning southern sensibility in praise-garnering pages, he was a man not unlike many of us: wandering, depressed, studying for a career he didn?t want to have in the midst of a quarter-life crisis?" >>>> >>>> continued at: >>>> https://angelusnews.com/news/casey-mccorry/an-existentialists-companion-walker-percy >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >>>> >>>> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >>>> >>>> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >>>> >>>> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy >>> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >>> >>> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >>> >>> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >>> >>> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy >> * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ >> >> * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l >> >> * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org >> >> * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > * Percy-L Discussion Archives: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > * Manage Your Membership: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > * Contact the Moderator: percy-l-owner (at) lists.ibiblio.org > > * Visit The Walker Percy Project: http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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