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.

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

Tags: documentary, Win Riley

Andrew Santella makes his way through The Moviegoer each year as part of his Lenten preparation. He has been reading the book in “real time” and has decided to blog his progress.

For the last few years, I’ve been reading the book in real time, which is to say I read the sections of the book that take place on the Wednesday before Mardi Gras on that Wednesday, the Thursday sections on Thursday, etc. There’s no very compelling reason to read like this and some good reasons not to—for one thing, trying to explain this system tends to make you sound a little obsessed and unhinged. But I do it mainly because I think Binx Bolling, The Moviegoer’s hero and narrator, would approve.

Well, not that it matters, but I also approve. You can check out Andrew’s first post here, and you can keep up with him as he chronicles Binx’s search.

Tags: The Moviegoer

TNR has posted W.H. Auden’s 1944 review of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or.

Tags: Auden, Kierkegaard

I’ve not seen a single episdoe of Lost, but I’m told there are a number of literary allusions in the story lines. This morning I came across a reference to the books of Lost.  Percy’s Lancelot makes an appearance, so now I’m half tempted to watch the show — although I’d have to start from the beginning.

Tags: Lancelot, Lost

I am just now reading the management book that everyone else in American business read 15 years ago–The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Believe it or not, Covey said something early in his book that made me think of the Will Barrett character from The Last Gentleman and The Second Coming. Nothing too profound here, just an observation. (And yes, I am aware of the irony of comparing what is basically a well-written self-help book to Percy’s novels given the treatment Percy gives the genre in Lost in the Cosmos.)

Covey writes that we should move on a Maturity Continuum from dependence, to independence and finally interdependence. He points out that we begin life as infants completely dependent on others. In order to survive we rely on someone else. It is a you focus–you take care of me, you need to handle this, I’m depending on you, etc. He then says that as we grow and mature we (should) rise to the level of independence. At this level we are focused on I–I can do it, I am responsible, I am capable. However, Covey believes we should then strive to reach the higher level of interdependence where the pronoun is we–we can do it, we cooperate, we can pool our talents, etc.

What does any of this have to do with Will Barrett? It struck me that throughout most of The Last Gentleman, Barrett is desperate for someone to tell him who to be and how to act. He clings to Kitty, Sutter, Val, anyone he thinks understands how to live with purpose. He is dependent. By the The Second Coming, Barrett is independent. He pronounces his independence by crawling into a cave to test God. The story ends with Barrett interdependent with his decision to marry Allison. He understands that together they are better than they were alone.

Again, nothing too original here, just the realization that Barrett had to become independent before he could become interdependent. He couldn’t skip that step. If he had stayed with Kitty, as we left him at the end of The Last Gentleman, he would have simply stayed dependent, and not much of a man. Yet, had he stayed independent much longer he would have eventually taken his own life. He moved from one stage (or paradigm to use Covey’s over-used word) to another just in the knick of time. God’s grace was extended at each transition, and Will was given the opportunity to grow and mature. Perhaps other opportunities had appeared before, but eventually grace and courage combined to move him forward.

Tags: Stephen Covey, The Last Gentleman, The Second Coming

I recently found a blog with an intriguing post on the likes and dislikes of Christian Hipsters. The author has identified the unique qualities of a new breed of Christian who is proud of his faith, but also actively engaged with modern culture. When writing about authors favored by Christian Hipsters, he provides the following list:

They tend to be fans of any number of the following authors: Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton, John Howard Yoder, Walter Brueggemann, N.T. Wright, Brennan Manning, Eugene Peterson, Anne Lamott, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Henri Nouwen, Soren Kierkegaard, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Annie Dillard, Marilynne Robison, Chuck Klosterman, David Sedaris, or anything ancient and/or philosophically important.

It is hard to argue with this list. By this criteria alone, I suppose I should attend the next hipster meeting…. Who am I kidding, hipsters are too cool for meetings.

Tags: hipsters

I recently read an article entitled “Death by Suicide: The End of English Departments and Literacy” by Mary Garbar. Garbar bemoans the rise of graphic novels as subjects of “serious” academic study. She believes that this academic decay began with deconstructionism and was reinforced by gender-specific studies.

Actually the gender studies theorists were the ones to put the final stake through writing, while viciously accusing it of “phallologocentrism.” They accused writing itself of following the trajectory of male sexual response in its “linear” goal-seeking of meaning. Grammar, logic, and universal meaning promoted the male, imperialist goal of subjugation. Writing, like male sexuality, was inherently rapacious.

As alternative, Elaine Showalter took her cue from Luce Irigaray’s notion of “labial thinking,” and advanced “uterine withdrawal and containment.” “Women,” Helene Cixous insisted, “must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes….”

I’m quite certain that if Percy were teaching today he would be chased out of most English department staff meetings. I wish he could have lived long enough to draft a follow-up to Lost in the Cosmos that addressed the unraveling of English as an intellectual discipline.

Tags: gender studies

The folks over at National Review have put together a list of the best conservative novels published since 1950. The Thanatos Syndrome makes number five on their list. I assume it is Percy’s attack on Fedville technocrat killers that earns him a place amongst conservative thinkers. While not known for being purposely political, Percy does use his insight and biting wit to highlight the devastating consequences of allowing collective social “good” to override the sanctity and primacy of individual life.

Tags: conservative, The Thanatos Syndrome