According to Phil Oliver,  in the 1930s Walker Percy and lifelong friend Shelby Foote built a wood and stone teahouse near the University of the South in the hills surrounding Sewanee, Tennessee. Having been to Sewanee in the past, you can be sure that I will attempt to find this place when I return. At the risk of being impolite, I am going to post Dr. Oliver’s photo here, not to infringe on his privacy (if there is such a thing after you post a photo of yourself on a blog), but to show that this interesting artifact exists.

Update: After further research, this teahouse is likely located on the property of “Brinkwood,” the vacation home of Uncle Will Percy.  As mentioned by Dr. Oliver, this property is located very close to area known as Lost Cove. This densely wooded terrain is full of caves and crevices and is the likely inspiration for Will Barrett’s cave in The Second Coming.

Tags: Sewanee, Shelby Foote, teahouse, The Second Coming

Tom Bartlett recently wrote an entertaining homage to Lost in the Cosmos for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article is aptly named, “Walker Percy’s Weirdest Book.” Mr. Barlett’s summary of the book is spot on:

Easily the strangest book he [Percy] wrote was Lost in the Cosmos, which is shelved among the nonfiction but is actually an indescribable concoction of hard facts and wild imagination, a parody of self-help books (sort of), a philosophy textbook (kind of), and a collection of short stories, quizzes, diagrams, thought experiments, mathematical formulas, made-up dialogue, ridiculously long chapter titles, and a few David Foster Wallace-worthy footnotes. It’s honestly great, or possibly terrible, depending on your level of patience for Percy’s stew of literary high jinks.

I suspect this book gives us the most unfiltered look into Percy’s mind.

Tags: Lost in the Cosmos, Tom Bartlett

Micah Mattix on the twentieth anniversary of Walker Percy’s death and his literary and intellectual legacy.

So, Jesus and Col. Sanders were walking down the street… stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

I couldn’t resist posting this photo as a summation of sorts of Walker Percy’s world.

Photo Credit

Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote recently on the 20th anniversary of Walker Percy’s death.  In his post, Dr. Moore makes some interesting observations on Percy’s unique style.  I’ll provide one quote here, but it is worth reading all of Dr. Moore’s comments.

Percy’s apocalyptic writing, whether fiction or non-fiction, sounds so much different than the faux-apocalypticism of so much contemporary Christian “culture war” rhetoric. It’s direct, yes, about human sin and human guilt. He wasn’t writing to raise money from those who would love to have a “your future is bright” imprimatur for the way things are. But there’s a hopefulness there. Part of that is because Percy was writing for the human conscience, not to raise direct-mail money from the outraged.

Tags: Russell Moore

I just finished watching the George Clooney movie Up in the Air. It is the story of an isolated man who flies around the country firing people for a living. Both the writing and acting were good quality.

The dialog was insightful, but I think the overall theme is what made it interesting. While the movie obviously reflects on whether living in self-banishment can be fulfilling, I think the story is really a study in selfishness. We are shown selfish companies cutting their employees lose; selfish bosses who don’t have the heart to terminate their own staff; the selfish embrace of technology to dehumanize; a selfish man who lives in isolated luxury; a selfish woman who wants to live in two worlds; a young couple struggling with the idea of “till death due us part.” What’s surprising is this movie was normal. There was nothing shocking about the people or circumstances depicted. We all know, or are, these people. Just like with Percy’s novels, all this movie did was strip away the layers to hint at what is really going on.

This makes me wonder if our present-day consumer-obsessed culture of “me” is really the culmination of Western thought. Is our society going through a selfish phase, or is it hurtling along an immutable trajectory? God help us.

Tags: modernity, selfishness, Up in the Air

Percy examines the importance of language and ideas in a speech titled “The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind“.

The goal of the Walker Percy Center for Writing and Publishing is to foster literary talent and achievement, to highlight the art of writing as essential to a good education, and to serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing by providing educational and vocational opportunities in writing and publishing. We envision the Center as a vital part of the University’s commitment to the educational needs of its students and of the citizens of New Orleans, as specified in Loyola’s Statement of Educational Purpose.

By naming the Center for Walker Percy, we honor the memory and contributions of this prominent American author, Catholic, and former Loyola faculty member. By establishing such a center and encouraging publication, we can draw on and further the strengths of several arts departments on campus, including English, communications, music, drama, and visual arts.

I’m curious how Percy would respond to our current societal fascination with Facebook, Twitter and blogging in general. I suspect his reaction would be complex. This is a man who feared the demise of modern man, yet spent hours watching soap operas. Perhaps he enjoyed watching the train wreck.

I think our ability to broadcast our personal thoughts and life events has shrunk the world. It no longer matters if my friends are half the world away; we exchange life’s little moments in a way that reminds us that we are not alone. Yes, it is frivolous and pedestrian, but it is better than loneliness. Besides, most daily interactions rarely rise beyond this level.

Admittedly, it does seem like a poor substitute for actual face to face interaction, but it is better than allowing oneself to slip away altogether.

Tags: modernity, technology, writing

I’ve often heard that the South was full of ghosts. I suppose the idea that long-forgotten Civil War dead are roaming the countryside animated by nothing but resentment and anger is too good to resist. I was born in the South and live here now. While I have never given any thought to long-lost soldiers wandering the hills and valleys, I do know that the South is haunted.

It is haunted by memory. Not always significant memories–like recollections of battles won and lost–it is haunted by a perfect recall of everyday hurts, jealousies and frustrations. Nothing is forgotten here and everything is personal.

When I first settled in my small Southern town, one of the questions put to me was, “What’s your name?” This is a simple enough question, but they didn’t want to know my name–only. When my answer didn’t provide the data hoped for, the questioner got to the point: “Who are your people?” You see, they needed to place me the social hierarchy and flip through their Rolodex of past wrongs to see if their grandfather had been mistreated by my grandfather or if some other long-ago slight should push us apart. I’m not making this up. This questions is put to me regularly–typically by gray-haired men and women who pride themselves on their pride.

For years I’ve read about Southern honor and pride, but I always thought that was over-romanticized sentimentality. I now know I didn’t recognize it because in daily life it is not displayed as noble or high-minded piety; rather it is petty, common and exercised by both those in high standing and the lowest of the low. I did not recognize it because it is everywhere.

I now know that there is something special about the South. The land may not be haunted, but the everyday memories of its many residents are.

Tags: The South