Of course Greg is right about the best way to experience fiction is to experience it, without having to see the schematic underneath. On the other hand, some of us can hardly get by without a crib sheet. Lost in the Cosmos in some ways lets you have access to the ideas Percy seeks to incarnate in his fiction, as do various writings by Kierkegaard and even more difficult writers. For me, in some ways, trying to understand Percy has been an ongoing back-and-forth, looking under the hood, trying to start the engine, checking the manual, etc. At the same time, though, I really, really dug The Moviegoer the first time I read it, even though I had no idea what all was going on in the background -- and didn't get to Kierkegaard and the other sources for along time afterward. It's one of the most haunting books I've ever read, and I've gone back to it many times, and its been richer each time. You can try something else maybe like The Second Coming, or else come back to The Moviegoer another time. Or you can cheat and start looking at the crib sheets. (Now somebody is firing at ME from the grassy knoll.)
0
Walker Percy
Started by
Diane
, Aug 28 2003 08:40 AM
57 replies to this topic
#22
Ron Reed
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 12:35 AM
I think I've read maybe five of WP's books. MOVIEGOER by far the least interesting to me, and I think the least representative of what Percy is about, and what his novels are like. LOVE IN THE RUINS is the bee's knees, far as I'm concerned, and far more representative. Shelve THE MOVIEGOER, start with LOVE. Funny, provocative, smart, strange, readable.
#23
mike_h
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 07:20 AM
Whoa now. Sure there are more accessible Percy novels for the Percy newbie, and Love in the Ruins may be the most accessible. But to say The Moviegoer isn't representative of Walker Percy is to misrepresent Walker Percy. Binx Bolling is the quintessential Percian character. Look at all the famous Percy-ites who have adopted him. I exchanged a couple emails once with Robert Coles (famous child psychologist and Percy friend and biographer) and was amused to discover "Binx Bolling" was his email handle. And here's yet another Percy fan I ran across who identifies with the Binxter. The Moviegoer is the Percy book that won the National Book Award, and in it some of his keyest themes are set in motion and given perhaps their cleanest form: the Kirkegaardian notions like Rotation and Repitition (it would take a long discussion to explain these, but they're there) and above all "the search," the desire that is the Percy character's only hope for an escape from despair. The very first time I read the book I was disappointed it wasn't what I'd hope for: some kind of nostalgic (and, in hindsight, facile) interaction with movies -- an understandable expectation for a book with this title, perhaps. But Percy has bigger fish to fry: he's diving face-first into the characteristic and seemingly inescapable despair of late-twentieth century humanity. In a certain sense, it's far from feel-good. On the other hand, as he learned from Kierkegaard, knowing you're in despair may in fact be the first step in getting out of it. Hence the irresistable and unforgettable notion of "the search":
"The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a castaway do? Why, he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick.
"To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."
The notion of being "on to something" is something that has grown in value to me over the years and I know much of my own recognition of the search and the need for it and the ultimate hopefulness of it is something I owe to The Moviegoer.
"The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a castaway do? Why, he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick.
"To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."
The notion of being "on to something" is something that has grown in value to me over the years and I know much of my own recognition of the search and the need for it and the ultimate hopefulness of it is something I owe to The Moviegoer.
#24
Diane
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 10:29 AM
| QUOTE |
| I'm currently reading my first Percy book, The Moviegoer. I'm certainly enjoying it, although I'm not certain where it's going or if it's going anywhere (repetition and rotation, anyone?). I hope to weigh in on it shortly at the Percy thread that's around here somewhere. |
So, the letdown occurred sometime after that. But I certainly was intrigued by the ideas of Rotation and Repetition (although I clearly didn't understand them) and the notion of "the search." Hm. And yes, I, too, was expecting that "facile" theme. I think my appreciation of this would really benefit from in-depth study, seeing as how all I really know about Percy is on this thread. That and the fact that he was born in my hometown.
#25
mike_h
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 11:06 AM
Somehow I think it’s a mistake for me to try to explain Kierkegaard (I’m sure it will be a “facile” explanation 
), but I’ll give it a shot in the hopes it keeps you on the Search, Diane.
Percy’s starting point is human lostness: scientific and technological man seems to know and understand everything but himself; he’s alienated, he’s homeless, he’s “lost in he cosmos.” This produces some absurd situations and syndromes (which Percy delights in exploring in fiction and non-fiction) and some drastic and futile means of escaping from this condition.
Rotation and repetition are terms from Kierkegaard, whose thought is woven into Percy’s own. For “Rotation,” think “crop rotation”: the aesthete who keeps rotating one pleasure for another in an effort to escape his despair. Repetition involves a similar escape attempt, having to do with an attempt to recreate a past pleasure.
Percy has a great essay in the book The Message in the Bottle called “The Man on the Train.” In fact, I always thought it would be fun for somebody to do a Percian reading of the recent film of that exact same title. (The coincidence in fact is so perfect that I've seriously wondered if the filmmaker had Percy in mind with that film.) Percy’s man on the train escapes his existential malaise by suddenly stepping off the train before it gets to his everyday destination: he experiences a “zone crossing,” stepping out of his ordinary existence and through that experience gets a precious glimpse of the world from another perspective. Of course, this is the very matter of that movie, if you’ve seen it: two very different people try on one another’s lives for a time in a longing for that very escape. Percy would point out that such escapes, however, are only temporary: the creeping everydayness reasserts itself in the new situation and ultimately you have to “rotate” again, chase a new novelty or pleasure, a desperate chase indeed. Rotation is only helpful, says Percy, if it provokes something that transcends a the round of novelties and enflames a more transcendental search: Kierkegaard talks about “stages on life’s way,” an “aesthetic stage”leading to an “ethical stage”leading to the famous “leap of faith.”
These are the kind of ideas and movement beneath the obsessing and overly-self-conscious inner turmoil and outer wanderings of Binx Bolling in The Moviegoer, and the meditations on the lostness of the Self and the quest for an escape from contemporary malaise carries on in all of Percy’s books. Too much attention to the plot, too much wishing Percy would just stick with the sardonic observations and push them in the direction of more broad humor, and you’ll not be able to tap into the richness of what Walker Percy has to offer (speaking from experience). But once you’re tuned into the right wavelength, you may find yourself hooked and the search may send you off in a thousand other directions, not least of which might be trying to figure out some of the philosophical underpinnings and references in Percy. Or, even better, on your own Search.
In any case, I'm sure you don't have to have read up on Kierkegaard and the rest before connecting with Walker Percy. The main thing with him, as with any author, is to set aside your preconceived notions for how you want the story to go and open yourself up to what the author has for you in his particular vision. This one's really worth it, so hang in there!
), but I’ll give it a shot in the hopes it keeps you on the Search, Diane.Percy’s starting point is human lostness: scientific and technological man seems to know and understand everything but himself; he’s alienated, he’s homeless, he’s “lost in he cosmos.” This produces some absurd situations and syndromes (which Percy delights in exploring in fiction and non-fiction) and some drastic and futile means of escaping from this condition.
Rotation and repetition are terms from Kierkegaard, whose thought is woven into Percy’s own. For “Rotation,” think “crop rotation”: the aesthete who keeps rotating one pleasure for another in an effort to escape his despair. Repetition involves a similar escape attempt, having to do with an attempt to recreate a past pleasure.
Percy has a great essay in the book The Message in the Bottle called “The Man on the Train.” In fact, I always thought it would be fun for somebody to do a Percian reading of the recent film of that exact same title. (The coincidence in fact is so perfect that I've seriously wondered if the filmmaker had Percy in mind with that film.) Percy’s man on the train escapes his existential malaise by suddenly stepping off the train before it gets to his everyday destination: he experiences a “zone crossing,” stepping out of his ordinary existence and through that experience gets a precious glimpse of the world from another perspective. Of course, this is the very matter of that movie, if you’ve seen it: two very different people try on one another’s lives for a time in a longing for that very escape. Percy would point out that such escapes, however, are only temporary: the creeping everydayness reasserts itself in the new situation and ultimately you have to “rotate” again, chase a new novelty or pleasure, a desperate chase indeed. Rotation is only helpful, says Percy, if it provokes something that transcends a the round of novelties and enflames a more transcendental search: Kierkegaard talks about “stages on life’s way,” an “aesthetic stage”leading to an “ethical stage”leading to the famous “leap of faith.”
These are the kind of ideas and movement beneath the obsessing and overly-self-conscious inner turmoil and outer wanderings of Binx Bolling in The Moviegoer, and the meditations on the lostness of the Self and the quest for an escape from contemporary malaise carries on in all of Percy’s books. Too much attention to the plot, too much wishing Percy would just stick with the sardonic observations and push them in the direction of more broad humor, and you’ll not be able to tap into the richness of what Walker Percy has to offer (speaking from experience). But once you’re tuned into the right wavelength, you may find yourself hooked and the search may send you off in a thousand other directions, not least of which might be trying to figure out some of the philosophical underpinnings and references in Percy. Or, even better, on your own Search.
In any case, I'm sure you don't have to have read up on Kierkegaard and the rest before connecting with Walker Percy. The main thing with him, as with any author, is to set aside your preconceived notions for how you want the story to go and open yourself up to what the author has for you in his particular vision. This one's really worth it, so hang in there!
#26
Diane
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 11:24 AM
Okay, WOW. Thank you very, very much, Mike. I'm sure I'll revisit that post many times. This is getting more and more fascinating because it does sound so true (repetition, rotation, etc.). Don't worry; I have no plans of abandoning Percy. In fact, I'll have to pick up another book of his soon. This discussion is a great catalyst.
#27
kebbie
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 11:37 AM
hurrah for the resurrection of this thread!
i recently read the aforementioned "the life you save may be your own: an american pilgrimage," which chronicles the lives and works and faith of four mid-century american catholic authors: dorothy day, flannery o'connor, thomas merton, and walker percy. i grew to love all of them in the course of reading "the life you save...", and composed a reading list of key books by and/or related to them.
mr. percy, his journey, and his ideas completely absorbed me, so i started with his "the moviegoer." and i have to tell you, i TOILED through that book. i just finished it last week, and i was never gladder to be done with a work of literature. i completely empathize with diane's feelings on the work. unlike her, i already had at least some understanding of percy's ideas about rotation and repetition, but i was still completely lost and disinterested throughout the course of the book. i understand that the man is a genius, and i love other things he's written, but i was stunned to find that i completely failed to connect with anything--ANYTHING--about "the moviegoer."
part of me wonders if it's a generational/historical disconnect; i felt like some of the sentiments as well as the settings were culturally specific to mid-century concerns. half the time, i didn't even know the significance a character's most mundane actions--for example, what the hell is a "cowboy slap," which kate does to her elbow in one scene? i was born in 1979. i have no idea what a cowboy slap, or pretty much any cultural reference in the book, even is. this isn't a weakness of the book, of course, but it's just one of the things that distanced me from it.
the weirdest thing of all was that i couldn't relate or make a personal connection AT ALL with binx, who is supposed to be this disenfranchised, alienated guy on the cusp of adulthood. now, i consider myself a disaffected youth, and in my high school days ACHED at the connection i made characters created by, for example, salinger, who was writing in the same era as percy. which is why i was frustrated that i couldn't really get inside binx's life, or track with his story--it COULD just be that his alienation was so specific to that era in american life, but it doesn't make sense in light of novels from other generations i've also read and understood perfectly.
anyway, i'm rambling. don't get me wrong, i don't think "the moviegoer" was a bad book--i was just so disappointed that i didn't understand, connect with, or otherwise feel like i could participate in the story at all. i suppose it's good that there are others in this boat (dan, diane...), but is there just something wrong with us?? :-)
i recently read the aforementioned "the life you save may be your own: an american pilgrimage," which chronicles the lives and works and faith of four mid-century american catholic authors: dorothy day, flannery o'connor, thomas merton, and walker percy. i grew to love all of them in the course of reading "the life you save...", and composed a reading list of key books by and/or related to them.
mr. percy, his journey, and his ideas completely absorbed me, so i started with his "the moviegoer." and i have to tell you, i TOILED through that book. i just finished it last week, and i was never gladder to be done with a work of literature. i completely empathize with diane's feelings on the work. unlike her, i already had at least some understanding of percy's ideas about rotation and repetition, but i was still completely lost and disinterested throughout the course of the book. i understand that the man is a genius, and i love other things he's written, but i was stunned to find that i completely failed to connect with anything--ANYTHING--about "the moviegoer."
part of me wonders if it's a generational/historical disconnect; i felt like some of the sentiments as well as the settings were culturally specific to mid-century concerns. half the time, i didn't even know the significance a character's most mundane actions--for example, what the hell is a "cowboy slap," which kate does to her elbow in one scene? i was born in 1979. i have no idea what a cowboy slap, or pretty much any cultural reference in the book, even is. this isn't a weakness of the book, of course, but it's just one of the things that distanced me from it.
the weirdest thing of all was that i couldn't relate or make a personal connection AT ALL with binx, who is supposed to be this disenfranchised, alienated guy on the cusp of adulthood. now, i consider myself a disaffected youth, and in my high school days ACHED at the connection i made characters created by, for example, salinger, who was writing in the same era as percy. which is why i was frustrated that i couldn't really get inside binx's life, or track with his story--it COULD just be that his alienation was so specific to that era in american life, but it doesn't make sense in light of novels from other generations i've also read and understood perfectly.
anyway, i'm rambling. don't get me wrong, i don't think "the moviegoer" was a bad book--i was just so disappointed that i didn't understand, connect with, or otherwise feel like i could participate in the story at all. i suppose it's good that there are others in this boat (dan, diane...), but is there just something wrong with us?? :-)
#28
kebbie
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 11:42 AM
| QUOTE (mike_h @ Aug 19 2004, 11:05 AM) |
| Percy’s man on the train escapes his existential malaise by suddenly stepping off the train before it gets to his everyday destination: he experiences a “zone crossing,” stepping out of his ordinary existence and through that experience gets a precious glimpse of the world from another perspective. Of course, this is the very matter of that movie, if you’ve seen it: two very different people try on one another’s lives for a time in a longing for that very escape. Percy would point out that such escapes, however, are only temporary: the creeping everydayness reasserts itself in the new situation and ultimately you have to “rotate” again, chase a new novelty or pleasure, a desperate chase indeed. Rotation is only helpful, says Percy, if it provokes something that transcends a the round of novelties and enflames a more transcendental search: Kierkegaard talks about “stages on life’s way,” an “aesthetic stage”leading to an “ethical stage”leading to the famous “leap of faith.” |
and this, of course, makes me think of another "man on the train"--remember, in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, when joel barrish suddenly "rotates," abandoning his usual commuter train into the city for an escape to montauk? it seems to me that the plot of this movie--and its philosophical undercurrents--follow closely the description of rotation you've explained here, mike. just a connection that caught in my mind when i read that.
yes, your explanation is very helpful indeed, mike. "the life you save..." explains it much the same way. it helps me APPRECIATE "the moviegoer," but i don't think i like it any better.
#29
Diane
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 11:50 AM
kebbie, I kid you not—Joel from Eternal Sunshine popped into my mind when I read Mike's post, too! 
#30
mike_h
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Posted 19 August 2004 - 11:58 AM
There's probably a sense in which all movies or stories take off with a "rotation": the story opens with the character's ordinary world, then comes the "One day..." sequence, when a chasm opens up and they end up on the other side. But you're right, I think I was thinking of the Percy "man on the train" with Eternal Sunshine, too. And with another Jim Carey movie, The Majestic, in which the rotation involves amnesia: not surprisingly, Percy was very big on amnesia, which I think somewhere he called "the perfect rotation".
As for not connecting with The Moviegoer, I wouldn't worry about it. There's about ten-thousand things I'm supposed to have connected with that I haven't, and I never know what's going to do it for me. Sometimes I get something the first time, sometimes when I come back to it later, some things I'm still waiting for the nickle to drop. The generational theory is interesting: I'll think about that one. No doubt the baggage we bring to any work largely determines how it affects us. I think some of my own darker twists must have found (true confessions?) resonance with some of the dysfunctional psyches the good Dr. Percy gave to his protagonists, especially Binx Bolling and Tom More in Love in the Ruins and its sequel. The fact that with all their dysfunctionality, those characters still kept moving forward on their relentless quests has always been rather encouraging and inspiring to me.
As for not connecting with The Moviegoer, I wouldn't worry about it. There's about ten-thousand things I'm supposed to have connected with that I haven't, and I never know what's going to do it for me. Sometimes I get something the first time, sometimes when I come back to it later, some things I'm still waiting for the nickle to drop. The generational theory is interesting: I'll think about that one. No doubt the baggage we bring to any work largely determines how it affects us. I think some of my own darker twists must have found (true confessions?) resonance with some of the dysfunctional psyches the good Dr. Percy gave to his protagonists, especially Binx Bolling and Tom More in Love in the Ruins and its sequel. The fact that with all their dysfunctionality, those characters still kept moving forward on their relentless quests has always been rather encouraging and inspiring to me.
#31
DanBuck
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Bigger. Badder. Balder.
Posted 20 August 2004 - 07:50 PM
| QUOTE (kebbie @ Aug 19 2004, 12:36 PM) |
| part of me wonders if it's a generational/historical disconnect; i felt like some of the sentiments as well as the settings were culturally specific to mid-century concerns. half the time, i didn't even know the significance a character's most mundane actions--for example, what the hell is a "cowboy slap," which kate does to her elbow in one scene? i was born in 1979. i have no idea what a cowboy slap, or pretty much any cultural reference in the book, even is. this isn't a weakness of the book, of course, but it's just one of the things that distanced me from it. the weirdest thing of all was that i couldn't relate or make a personal connection AT ALL with binx, who is supposed to be this disenfranchised, alienated guy on the cusp of adulthood. now, i consider myself a disaffected youth, and in my high school days ACHED at the connection i made characters created by, for example, salinger, who was writing in the same era as percy. which is why i was frustrated that i couldn't really get inside binx's life, or track with his story--it COULD just be that his alienation was so specific to that era in american life, but it doesn't make sense in light of novels from other generations i've also read and understood perfectly. |
Oooh, oooh, ooh!!! Now we're cooking with gas!!
This is good! I am finding a number of "great works" where the greatness is obvious to me but for which there is no personal connection because the theme almost seems a given of my generation's melieu of ideas and values. (I am only four years kebbie's senior) Specifically the themes of the "purposelessness of everyday life" the "search for meaning" are almost passe'. Certainly, they still ring true, but for a true postmodern, interacting with a work of art that has these ideas at its core, is like reading a text book that's trying to disprove a geocentric universe. Not that it's not true or valuable, but it may have more value when these ideas are not so inherently a part of the insurgent generation's schema. (And I, of course, acknowledge that it's in large part because of these works that we are where we are idealogically.) Here are some other works that have left me cold because they're working toward ideas that I already generally accept:
Akiru - And this isn't just a problem with me and Kuro. I LOVED 7 Samurai, but Akiru felt like a whole lot of moping. At the time it was produced there must have been scads of folks crying out "YES! that's how I feel. Yes, I'd love to chuck it all if my job wasn't fulfilling." But now, we'd chuck our job in a heartbeat if it wasn't fulfilling and we do, perhaps too often.
Waiting for Guffman - Yeah, truth is so hard to pin down there is an absurdity to our exitence. I got it, but it's only scene two, and I gotta feeling, its not going anywhere from here.
That's all can think of for now, except of course for The Moviegoer
There's a quote etched outside the library at Taylor University. Something about "ther are the books of the moment, and the books of all time" could it be that the latter can sometimes not be the former?
Edited by DanBuck, 20 August 2004 - 07:54 PM.
#32
mike_h
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Posted 21 August 2004 - 08:12 AM
| QUOTE (DanBuck @ Aug 20 2004, 06:49 PM) |
| Specifically the themes of the "purposelessness of everyday life" the "search for meaning" are almost passe'. Certainly, they still ring true, but for a true postmodern, interacting with a work of art that has these ideas at its core, is like reading a text book that's trying to disprove a geocentric universe. |
Golly, we've got several balls in the air now!
Dan, I love your geocentric universe metaphor, especially with regard to postmodernism. Certainly I understand the generational divide there, because I've really felt like I've straddled it. So many people I know who are older than me seem to dismiss postmodernity with a "Those d*mned flivvers will never never catch on" attitude, while for nearly everybody younger than me, trying to sketch that landscape is like trying to draw the attention of a fish to water (look, you've inspired me to metaphoric excess!). At the popular level, the paradigmatic ground has broken up underfeet in my own lifetime, and when the time came to pick a side, I lept, and find myself much more at home with the postmoderns. Though in my case maybe it represents learning a second language, and I still may speak with an accent. (Somebody turn off the metaphor machine!)
Where Walker Percy fits with regard to postmodernity is another question. I have a book on my shelf called Walker Percy and the Postmodern World, and I think that title is another case of an older author who doesn't necessarily get it. Her analysis of Percy makes it clear he was primarily an author whose subject was the breakdown of Modernity. (I do think by the 1980s, though, the old codger understood what was afoot, especially with regard to more abstract philosophical discussions involving language and truth.)
Whether or not the worldview or primary concerns of an author are dated or not is usually not the final criteria for greatness of any book. And, in fact, appreciating somebody like Dante requires lots of work trying to re-enter his long-abandoned thought world (which is why C. S. Lewis wrote the book The Discarded Image, to recreate Dante's thought world.) At the same time, a careful reader will find much to appreciate in The Divine Comedy even without understanding completely who's who in the circles of the Inferno. Of course, there's been many a difficult book I've given up on by concluding it wasn't worth reading anyway. (The "sour grapes" approach to literary experience.)
Is existential malaise passe in these postmodern times? Maybe I'm not qualified to answer that. I would agree that many expressions of it seem dated. Some will find the agonizing of Sartre and Camus either incomprehensible or quaint, though others continue to connect with Camus especially. But Doestoevsky was also deeply concerned with the breakdown of Modernity, and his own characters' existential agonizing seems timeless and rivetting to me. As for Percy, literary judgment may have to wait a generation or two and see if people are still reading him. I do notice that our friends over at Image magazine have a Walker Percy book on their list of the Top 100 spiritually significant books and that book is, ahem, The Moviegoer. (But we know how debatable those Top 100 lists can be!)
And FWIW, to this day I have no idea what a "cowboy slap" is.
#33
DanBuck
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Bigger. Badder. Balder.
Posted 21 August 2004 - 09:31 AM
mike_h
Good stuff! First off regarding:
Good stuff! First off regarding:
| QUOTE |
| Though in my case maybe it represents learning a second language, and I still may speak with an accent. (Somebody turn off the metaphor machine!) |
This fascinates me, because I have recently begun using this exact language regarding those who understand postmodernism and those who think in postmodern terms. "Primary and secondary language" In our Pre-planning week for our school year, the headmaster of our school, who is a brillaint man, brought up and even educated in modern times spoke extensively about our postmodern students. But this year, more so than in other years, he was speaking about it fluently and not as "the enemy" but just as a new paradigm. In fact, like most people learning a new language he was starting to appreciate the intracies of the new language and some of the failings of the old. I am near fluent in Spanish and I already think that English, in many ways, is a chaotic mess, compared to the simplicity of Spanish.
It's interesting to watch my elders (15-30 years older than me) as they straddle the gap.
In regards to Percy, let it be made clear that I DID in fact think the book great. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt when the winds have all gone round and and back again, there will be another generaton facing the same issues of malaise Percy does. But this one ain't it. So, it's not surprising to see my postmodern peers having trouble connecting.
#34
Peter T Chattaway
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He's fictional, but you can't have everything.
Posted 21 August 2004 - 12:24 PM
DanBuck wrote:
: Here are some other works that have left me cold because they're working
: toward ideas that I already generally accept:
: Akiru - And this isn't just a problem with me and Kuro. I LOVED 7 Samurai, but
: Akiru felt like a whole lot of moping. At the time it was produced there must have
: been scads of folks crying out "YES! that's how I feel. Yes, I'd love to chuck it all
: if my job wasn't fulfilling." But now, we'd chuck our job in a heartbeat if it wasn't
: fulfilling and we do, perhaps too often.
I think you err by viewing the film in chronological terms, and by using the word "we". My understanding is that there is something distinctly Japanese about the class of "salarymen" and the social obligations put on them. I am reminded of how one critic noted that the real significance of the Japanese film Shall We Dance? (1997) was bound to be missed by most American audiences, because THEY would see an uptight man learning how to be free just like them, whereas the film's ORIGINAL audience saw a man violating certain social codes. In Japan, the film was somewhat transgressive, whereas in the United States, the film is ultimately rather conformist -- which is just one reason among many why I dread the upcoming Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez remake.
Oh, and it's Ikiru, BTW.
: Here are some other works that have left me cold because they're working
: toward ideas that I already generally accept:
: Akiru - And this isn't just a problem with me and Kuro. I LOVED 7 Samurai, but
: Akiru felt like a whole lot of moping. At the time it was produced there must have
: been scads of folks crying out "YES! that's how I feel. Yes, I'd love to chuck it all
: if my job wasn't fulfilling." But now, we'd chuck our job in a heartbeat if it wasn't
: fulfilling and we do, perhaps too often.
I think you err by viewing the film in chronological terms, and by using the word "we". My understanding is that there is something distinctly Japanese about the class of "salarymen" and the social obligations put on them. I am reminded of how one critic noted that the real significance of the Japanese film Shall We Dance? (1997) was bound to be missed by most American audiences, because THEY would see an uptight man learning how to be free just like them, whereas the film's ORIGINAL audience saw a man violating certain social codes. In Japan, the film was somewhat transgressive, whereas in the United States, the film is ultimately rather conformist -- which is just one reason among many why I dread the upcoming Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez remake.
Oh, and it's Ikiru, BTW.
Edited by Peter T Chattaway, 21 August 2004 - 12:26 PM.
#35
DanBuck
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Bigger. Badder. Balder.
Posted 21 August 2004 - 12:50 PM
| QUOTE (Peter T Chattaway @ Aug 21 2004, 01:23 PM) |
| I think you err by viewing the film in chronological terms, and by using the word "we". My understanding is that there is something distinctly Japanese about the class of "salarymen" and the social obligations put on them. I am reminded of how one critic noted that the real significance of the Japanese film Shall We Dance? (1997) was bound to be missed by most American audiences, because THEY would see an uptight man learning how to be free just like them, whereas the film's ORIGINAL audience saw a man violating certain social codes. In Japan, the film was somewhat transgressive, whereas in the United States, the film is ultimately rather conformist -- which is just one reason among many why I dread the upcoming Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez remake. |
Are you not agreeing with me? I'm merely looking for why the film does not connect. And you've just restated it has to do with time (but you've added place).
Or am I misreadng you?
| QUOTE |
| Oh, and it's Ikiru, BTW. |
I am an adiot.
#36
Peter T Chattaway
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He's fictional, but you can't have everything.
Posted 21 August 2004 - 03:25 PM
DanBuck wrote:
: Are you not agreeing with me? I'm merely looking for why the film does not connect.
I guess we MIGHT be agreeing ... but there seemed a certain, dare I say, tendency towards modernist universalization ("we") and not so much a postmodern recognition that the film was produced within a very specific cultural matrix.
: Are you not agreeing with me? I'm merely looking for why the film does not connect.
I guess we MIGHT be agreeing ... but there seemed a certain, dare I say, tendency towards modernist universalization ("we") and not so much a postmodern recognition that the film was produced within a very specific cultural matrix.
#37
DanBuck
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Bigger. Badder. Balder.
Posted 21 August 2004 - 03:42 PM
I see. I merely meant "we" in terms of the three or four 20-somethings on this very thread who claimed they were having toruble indentifying withe the book.
#38
Darryl A. Armstrong
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Father. Advertiser. Writer. Social medier. Thinker. Pop philosop
Posted 22 August 2004 - 01:24 PM
This is turning out to be a great conversation. It's been a few years since I read The Moviegoer, but I remember conecting very strongly to Binx Bolling. Maybe I'm a fish out of water in my generation, I'm 23, but I empathized completely with the despair of this character. As opposed to, say, Holden Caulfield from A Catcher in the Rye, who is prone to "lash out" against the world in which he lives, I am much more likely to respond as Binx Bolling, "obsessing [with] overly-self-conscious inner turmoil."
You've made some wonderful remarks and observations here, Mike. I had never thought of connecting Percy to Kierkegaard. Thanks.
You've made some wonderful remarks and observations here, Mike. I had never thought of connecting Percy to Kierkegaard. Thanks.
#39
kebbie
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Member
Posted 23 August 2004 - 10:06 AM
this is indeed a great conversation. i'm learning so much!
| QUOTE (Darryl A. Armstrong) |
| It's been a few years since I read The Moviegoer, but I remember conecting very strongly to Binx Bolling. Maybe I'm a fish out of water in my generation, I'm 23, but I empathized completely with the despair of this character. |
this makes me wonder if these connections may have something to do with our OWN personal development, as well. for example, i remember reading "franny and zooey" by salinger when i was probably 19 or 20, the years during which i was just beginning to figure out that the world, and the faith by which we navigate it, is not so easily halved into black and white as i'd originally imagined. my late teens/early 20s were my season of disenfranchisement, disillusionment, and despair.
where i'm going with this is that i suspect, had i read "the moviegoer" during that season, i would've connected intimately and personally with it. but by now, as dan said, i feel like these ideas about the "purposelessness of everyday life" or the "search for meaning" aren't new to me--they are, in fact, a bit of a "well, duh." a book like the moviegoer has value for me as a starting place, as a cultural and sociological documentation of the origins of postmodern malaise. but i suppose i didn't connect with it personally because it came along at a time in my life when i had already found other literary sources that carried me through that season. when you grow up reading douglas coupland and watching films like "reality bites," you know what it's like to live with malaise without realizing where it originated. "hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent," anyone?
#40
Jacques
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Member
Posted 26 August 2008 - 06:08 PM
hubba hubba =), a most insightful article: WALKER PERCY'S BIBLE NOTES AND HIS FICTION: GRACIOUS OBSCENITY and below is the first paragraph,,,
IN The Moviegoer (MG), The Last Gentleman (LG), Love in the Ruins (LR), and The Thanatos Syndrome (TS), Walker Percy uses the unlikely images of a dung beetle, bowel movements, the deaths of children, and even genocide to express the sacramental presence of God in the often traumatic mess of human existence. This article will argue that Percy's use of the grotesquely obscene is explained in part by his reading of the Bible and the notes he made in the Bible and certain other related books that he owned. Taking off from a few of those annotations in the Gospel of John, the article explores Percy's literary uses of obscenity as a means of grace.
Click here!
IN The Moviegoer (MG), The Last Gentleman (LG), Love in the Ruins (LR), and The Thanatos Syndrome (TS), Walker Percy uses the unlikely images of a dung beetle, bowel movements, the deaths of children, and even genocide to express the sacramental presence of God in the often traumatic mess of human existence. This article will argue that Percy's use of the grotesquely obscene is explained in part by his reading of the Bible and the notes he made in the Bible and certain other related books that he owned. Taking off from a few of those annotations in the Gospel of John, the article explores Percy's literary uses of obscenity as a means of grace.
Click here!
Edited by Jacques, 26 August 2008 - 06:10 PM.
