[percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 20
Marcus Smith
marcus at loyno.edu
Thu Jul 23 13:43:45 EDT 2020
Did I say anything about Percy having a “cursory interest” in any of the
matters you link to this phrase?
On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 12:07 PM <percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:
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> 1. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 19 (Stephen Holmgren)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 12:58:40 -0400
> From: Stephen Holmgren <stephenholmgren at me.com>
> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 19
> Message-ID: <BC84A704-CD69-4419-869A-AA1903015EF8 at me.com>
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> With regard to the question about Percy?s Catholicism, it is worth bearing
> in mind his decision to become an oblate of St. Joseph?s Benedictine Abbey
> near his Covington home, as well as his desire to be buried in its
> cemetery. These decisions witness to a more than cursory interest in the
> historic Church?s sacramental view of Creation as well as the sturdy
> anthropology that goes along with it. They also suggest that his choices
> were rooted in his spiritual submission to something greater than himself
> rather than having been a series of acts of accommodation for things that
> he thought were compatible with himself.
>
>
> Stephen Holmgren
>
> stephenholmgren at me.com
> blog: www.towardbeauty.org <http://www.towardbeauty.org/>
> book: Ethics After Easter <
> https://smile.amazon.com/Ethics-After-Easter-Churchs-Teaching-ebook/dp/B009D1S374/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SATXO0UBWR8K&keywords=ethics+after+easter&qid=1555680856&s=gateway&sprefix=ethics+after+,aps,157&sr=8-1
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jul 23, 2020, at 12:44 PM, percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
> >
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> >
> > 1. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 15 (Charles Lowry)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 12:44:27 -0400
> > From: Charles Lowry <lowry.charles at gmail.com>
> > To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
> > <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 15
> > Message-ID: <8B55ABDB-108E-4DFF-BC95-DEE724F30E02 at gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> > I did not know Percy, though I was forty-one years old when he died and
> consider myself a pretty devoted acolyte. I agree with Marcus that Percy
> ought not to be regarded as a doctrinal touchstone for Catholicism, for one
> very important reason, which is why/how Percy came to Catholicism.
> >
> > There are lots of answers to this why/how question. I am a cradle
> Catholic; no one in my family can ever remember a time, stretching over
> multitudes of years and two continents, when we were not all Catholics. We
> were not all virtuous, we were not all observant, but we were all
> Catholic. That is one way to be Catholic. Converts come to the Church for
> a variety of reasons. Some marry a Catholic and convert for reasons of
> family unity and peace. Some are attracted by the history of the Church,
> the continuity, the hospitals, orphanages, universities. Some are
> intellectual converts, convinced by apologetics and doctrine. Some are
> sacramental converts, influenced by the encounter which those signs
> effect.
> >
> > Percy is as different. I am, in this plague year, away from my books
> and therefore unable to offer exact citations, but Percy was what we might
> call an anthropological convert. He looked at what the Church has learned
> in two thousand years, at how the Church reflected the reasonable view of
> humanity, and he latched on. He said once that he was a Catholic not
> because he agreed with the Church?s views on abortion, but because the
> Church agreed with his views on abortion. This is a far cry from the
> ?omnia et singula? Catholicism of the cradle Catholic or the apologetics
> Catholic. I am not suggesting that Percy had no feelings for the Church or
> for Catholic tradition?he once took Shelby Foote to a Solemn High Mass with
> Gregorian Chant and incense?but that he was much more likely, as Marcus
> seems to hint, to filter the Church?s perspective through his own than vice
> versa.
> >
> > Chuck Lowry
> > Brooklyn, New York
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >> On Jul 23, 2020, at 11:40 AM, Marcus Smith <marcus at loyno.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> ?
> >> ? if we
> >> accept Percy's Catholicism."
> >>
> >> I?m sort of uneasy with the (frequent) efforts to invoke Percy as a
> touchstone for various Catholic doctrinal issues. We knew Walker and Bunt
> and their daughters for 20+ years. We visited them. They were guests in
> our house. We went to some semiotic conferences with Walker. I certainly
> ?accept? that Walker was a Catholic. A serious Catholic. But like all of
> us he was (and is) a complex mystery. I wouldn?t begin to try to invoke
> his faith to support any particular doctrines, unless it is the play
> choices of an LSU football coach. Also, Percy started out as a
> Presbyterian (I think) as well as traversing a period of non-believing. He
> understood all these languages and dialects and could and did run them
> through his conversations. But except for LSU football, I would move
> carefully before invoking Percy?s faith for particular doctrinal claims.
> >>
> >>> On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 8:48 PM <percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org>
> wrote:
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> >>>
> >>> Today's Topics:
> >>>
> >>> 1. Happiness and the Meaning of Life (Steve Petrica)
> >>> 2. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 9 (Thomas Gollier)
> >>> 3. Re: Happiness and the Meaning of Life (janetcantor37 at yahoo.com)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Message: 1
> >>> Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2020 19:35:58 -0500
> >>> From: Steve Petrica <steve.petrica at gmail.com>
> >>> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
> >>> <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>
> >>> Subject: [percy-l] Happiness and the Meaning of Life
> >>> Message-ID:
> >>> <CACFVBi79jvQBtsr97Ty-9AdNBhx0gqx_8KE6i4FcUTCgkb=
> wmg at mail.gmail.com>
> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >>>
> >>> Bishop Barron's Word on Fire Institute has been streaming a lecture
> series
> >>> on "Happiness and the Meaning of Life," by University of South Carolina
> >>> philosophy professor Jennifer Frey. In lesson 5 of the series, she
> >>> presents *The
> >>> Moviegoer* as a "perceptive diagnosis of our malaise and our attempts
> to
> >>> relieve our deep sadness with countless distractions."
> >>>
> >>>
> https://wordonfire.institute/sin-self-knowledge-and-the-search-for-meaning
> >>> -------------- next part --------------
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> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Message: 2
> >>> Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2020 18:45:55 -0700
> >>> From: Thomas Gollier <tgollier at gmail.com>
> >>> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
> >>> <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>
> >>> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 9
> >>> Message-ID:
> >>> <
> CAMVPF1EQ46kOZP7RQaAWAF46fbx1DDzKWjz_2Gs0PTnEDRXGxQ at mail.gmail.com>
> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >>>
> >>> Mike and David,
> >>>
> >>> Mike, you seem to have zeroed in on the crux of this when you write:
> "if we
> >>> accept Percy's Catholicism."
> >>> For coming to Percy via his interest in Peirce's' semiotic and French
> >>> existentialism, his Catholicism has
> >>> been an ongoing fly in the ointment for me. Although I realize this
> is his
> >>> calling card with many of his readers,
> >>> it just doesn't seem to fit philosophically, at least until I read
> >>> 'Lancelot' and embroiled myself in this discussion.
> >>> Perhaps I can clarify what I mean by back to a phrase, "belief in an
> >>> objective moral order," that you used in
> >>> your first message opening this topic.
> >>>
> >>> A moral order, it seems to me, is an inherently subjective
> phenomenon. It
> >>> can be shared intersubjectively,
> >>> take on various objective trappings, and be even shared by so many over
> >>> such long periods of time that there
> >>> is some justification for referring to it legally as an "institution"
> or
> >>> semantically as "objective." And, in fact,
> >>> Catholicism has historically sought to increase its intersubjective
> mass by
> >>> aggressively proselytizing itself
> >>> around the world. But in an essentially important way, a moral order
> >>> remains subjective phenomenon
> >>> regardless of the extent of its intersubjective acceptance. A moral
> order
> >>> can only gain intersubjectivity by
> >>> being accepted and internalized by individual subjects as their own.
> >>>
> >>> A moral order that a person has inherited or internalized from others,
> with
> >>> whatever personal quirks they
> >>> may have added to it, doesn't become an "objective reality" until they
> >>> implement it in their own interactions
> >>> with others. And, this seems to be what Lancelot has resolved to do at
> the
> >>> end of the novel. He is going
> >>> to personally implement his moral order, such as it is, in his own
> >>> interactions with others. He hopes, even
> >>> assumes, many others agree with him, but if they don't that won't
> change
> >>> anything about what he intends
> >>> to do. His resolution to make his moral order the basis of his
> objective
> >>> interactions with others is what is
> >>> needed to get released and to find absolution.
> >>>
> >>> And David, I have to admit I was startled when, after going through I
> don't
> >>> know how many pages of
> >>> Lancelot's "confession," I read you writing: "It seems to me the
> >>> "transformation" is that of Fr. John (Percival).
> >>> But after mulling it over, Percival does seem to get to a similar
> >>> resolution and absolution in the course of
> >>> the novel. For he resolves to put his own more traditional Catholic
> moral
> >>> order into action on a local level.
> >>> I'm just kind of getting an inkling of what a powerful figure the local
> >>> priest could be. Someone knowing
> >>> everyone and their histories in the village that you could go to when
> you
> >>> were lost. You could lay out what
> >>> was wrong, maybe where we went wrong, how and why we got where you
> are, and
> >>> the priest could give
> >>> you absolution, a restart back on the right path. By "going native"
> >>> Percival would be making his moral order
> >>> existentially objective as well.
> >>>
> >>> And then there was Anna? She was communicating again and was being
> >>> released too.
> >>>
> >>> In fact, Percy has got me thinking at all kinds of confessions ? not
> just
> >>> those to priests and psychiatrists,
> >>> but also those made to parole boards, alcoholics anonymous, and such as
> >>> that. They all demand contrition
> >>> and they all provide absolution, but they all seem to have very
> different
> >>> standards as to what produces or
> >>> qualifies for that absolution. They certainly seem to play a bigger
> role
> >>> in our lives than I thought before
> >>> reading this novel.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Tom
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 10:09 AM Michael Larson <larsonovic at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Tom,
> >>>>
> >>>> I think the postulation that Lancelot and Percival are both in the
> >>>> afterlife is viable (and as I mentioned, intriguing), but it is less
> >>>> hopeful for Lancelot, at least if we accept Percy's Catholicism.
> People
> >>>> have different ideas about heaven, it's true, but that does not
> preclude it
> >>>> from being a real place that exists quite apart from people's
> anticipatory
> >>>> perceptions of it.
> >>>>
> >>>> You propose that heaven (or hell) is simply a person left
> unpretentiously
> >>>> with himself. What makes it one or the other--heaven or hell--is then
> >>>> presumably how one feels about one's real self, after all pretensions
> have
> >>>> been stripped away. This is, of course, an entirely subjective
> notion--one
> >>>> person's heaven might be another's hell (which is maybe what you were
> >>>> getting at with "pick your poison"), and neither heaven nor hell
> could be
> >>>> communal, nor would either represent any particular posture toward the
> >>>> divine, as the perimeter of each state is confined to the individual
> in
> >>>> question.
> >>>>
> >>>> But Lancelot is describing something objective (a created world) and
> >>>> communal (how society ought to be) and with a certain posture toward
> God
> >>>> (in Lance's case, anger followed by disillusionment). It might be a
> >>>> description of how he would make heaven on earth if he were in
> charge. But
> >>>> he is also aware that Percival does not align with him, that Percival
> has
> >>>> attached himself to something that transcends himself and his own
> ideas.
> >>>> And Lance is open-minded enough to acknowledge the possibility that
> >>>> Percival may even be right. i.e. "It's my way or it's your way, but
> it's
> >>>> not their way." And Percival agrees, "Yes."
> >>>>
> >>>> So where does that leave them? In Catholic teaching, purgatory is a
> >>>> refining fire set aside for those who die in a state of grace (no
> >>>> unrepentant mortal sin), a final purification before the beatific
> vision.
> >>>> But if Lance is dead, he has not died in a state of grace. "... no
> >>>> confession forthcoming, Father, as you well know ... I feel nothing
> now
> >>>> except a certain coldness" (253). If he is dead, Lance's state is
> fixed,
> >>>> according to Catholic teaching, and the thing Percival has to tell
> him, the
> >>>> thing that gives his gaze upon Lance such sadness (254) is that
> Lance's
> >>>> release from prison is a release into hell. The prison itself, the
> long
> >>>> recounting of his crime, has been his particular examination, upon
> death.
> >>>> And now the judgment of his chosen state lies before him. Yes, a new
> >>>> beginning of sorts but not a happy one.
> >>>>
> >>>> In this interpretation, though, I think there is no reason to assume
> that
> >>>> Percival died with Lance in the explosion. The strange silence of
> Percival
> >>>> over the course of the novel makes the encounter between the two men
> feel
> >>>> more like there is a kind of barrier, as between the living and the
> dead.
> >>>> We might even theorize that Lance's witnessing of Percival's prayer
> in the
> >>>> cemetery (254) is actually taking place at his own (Lance's own)
> grave,
> >>>> that Percival's prayer for the dead is for Lance. On the side of life,
> >>>> Percival cannot know the state of Lance's soul, so in charity, he
> prays.
> >>>> But at the final meeting of the novel, he does seem to know Lance's
> fate,
> >>>> and further maybe even to have been given the task of telling Lance.
> >>>>
> >>>> On the other hand, if neither man has died and Lance has truly been
> >>>> telling his story from a prison/hospital in the temporal realm, then
> we can
> >>>> speculate that the post-novel words of Percival may indeed begin to
> bring
> >>>> Lance toward sorrow and repentance, followed by redemption. At
> novel's end,
> >>>> he feels nothing but coldness. Perhaps that is the very nadir he had
> to
> >>>> reach in order to find life.
> >>>>
> >>>> Mike
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2020 18:04:28 +0000
> >>>>> From: "Beck, David A" <dabeck at iupui.edu>
> >>>>> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
> >>>>> <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [percy-l] [External] Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue
> >>>>> 6
> >>>>> Message-ID: <1595009067780.10724 at iupui.edu>
> >>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'm not sure we can go as far as saying Lance found redemption. I
> didn't
> >>>>> see any evidence of that. He makes his confession but doesn't seem to
> >>>>> bothered by what he has done. He didn't receive absolution, because
> he
> >>>>> wasn't repentant.
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> It seems to me the "transformation" is that of Fr. John (Percival). At
> >>>>> first, he is troubled, abstracted, and seems to be having doubts.
> After
> >>>>> hearing Lance's ravings, he realizes that he has to make a choice.
> Then he
> >>>>> returns wearing his clerical "outfit" and seems to have found
> renewal in
> >>>>> his faith. I read somewhere (did Percy say it?) that Fr. John is the
> real
> >>>>> protagonist.
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> If I'm wrong, I've led many a college student astray over the years.
> :-)
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> Just my two cents.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> -David
> >>>>>
> >>>>> David Beck
> >>>>> Senior Lecturer
> >>>>> English Department
> >>>>> Indiana University and Purdue University at Indianapolis
> >>>>> 425 University Boulevard, CA 343-E
> >>>>> Indianapolis, IN 46202
> >>>>> 317-278-2550
> >>>>>
> >>>>
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> >>> ------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Message: 3
> >>> Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 01:48:07 +0000 (UTC)
> >>> From: "janetcantor37 at yahoo.com" <janetcantor37 at yahoo.com>
> >>> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
> >>> <percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>
> >>> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Happiness and the Meaning of Life
> >>> Message-ID: <213691927.4924047.1595468887490 at mail.yahoo.com>
> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >>>
> >>> I must confess I only listened to the fifth lesson about The
> Moviegoer. Professor Frey was exquisite in her reading of the novel.
> >>> I have always wondered why I love Percy and have never figured it
> out.I am not Catholic, Southern, able to understand philosophy, or filled
> with malaise. ?Yet there is something speaking directly to me in his
> novels. And I love his humor.
> >>> The only thing in this whole presentation that gave me pause in lesson
> five is the way Binx's aunt is described. To me she is one aspect of life
> that must make up the whole of a person for him to be an integrated soul.?
> >>> So many who read Percy, particularly those who are attracted to the
> Christian side of him, dismiss his aunt. I did not. Conscience comes from
> our not wanting to?often G-d, yes, but it also comes from knowing right
> from wrong and not wanting to offend those who have our best?interests at
> heart.?
> >>> I was astounded by the beautiful way the professor's words?here so
> aptly described the novel.
> >>> Thank you for this.
> >>> Janet Cantor
> >>> On Wednesday, July 22, 2020, 08:36:49 PM EDT, Steve Petrica <
> steve.petrica at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Bishop Barron's Word on Fire Institute has been streaming a lecture
> series on "Happiness and the Meaning of Life," by University of South
> Carolina philosophy professor Jennifer Frey. In lesson 5 of the series, she
> presents The Moviegoer as a "perceptive diagnosis of our malaise and our
> attempts to relieve our deep sadness with countless distractions."
> >>>
> >>>
> https://wordonfire.institute/sin-self-knowledge-and-the-search-for-meaning
> >>> ----------------------------------
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