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The Walker Percy Project

A Descriptive Annotation

Three Catholic Writers of the Modern South (Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., 1985)

Annotated by Gabriel Dean Wicks

Brinkmeyer, Robert H., Jr. Three Catholic Writers of the Modern South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985. xvi, 190 pp. (49pp. on Percy)

In this critical account of three of the more significant voices from contemporary Southern literature, Brinkmeyer presents a dialogue between the process of Catholic conversion and the reciprocal effects manifested in a unique literary stance, as witnessed in the works of Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon and Walker Percy. Structurally, the book is separated into three essays, one on each of the three writers, followed by a brief general conclusion.

In the Percy section, Brinkmeyer begins with a nine-page biographical sketch of the events leading up to Percy's conversion to Catholicism in 1947, using primarily sources such as Lanterns on the Levee and The Literary Percys, and a number of personal interviews. There follows a chronological discussion of The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, Lancelot and The Second Coming (along with some details from various critical essays by Percy), with emphasis on how the significant tensions and ultimate resolutions of the novel is effected by the strong external influence of Catholicism.

In his analysis, Brinkmeyer presents his overall notions regarding Percy's various attempts at moralistic evangelism. At base, he contends that each novel seeks to resolve Percy's own personal conflict between "the Stoic ideas of the aristocratic South" (129) and the empty life of modern humanity, completely unfulfilled by the "cultural and spiritual vacuum" of a society based on "liberal humanism" (126). Specifically, Brinkmeyer argues that The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman present this polarized tension in a fairly straight-forward manner, with the resolutions coming through Binx's return to Catholicism and Jamie Vaught's baptism. Percy's stance in the first two novels, he claims, is a light-handed admonition for humanity to recognize its depraved nature and attempt some kind of reconciliation with God, Catholicism being merely one of many potential means of doing so.

Brinkmeyer contends that Percy's stance in his third and fourth novels becomes much more aggressive, pedantically heavy-handed and evangelical. Instead of a clear, rather benign statement of societal depravity intended to inspire the consideration of theological reconciliation, Love in the Ruins and especially Lancelot employ shock tactics designed to offend and "electrify the callous sensibilities of complacent readers ... [so that they] would be compelled out of their locked-in confines of everydayness," driving them to initiate an imperative personal renewal of faith, only attainable though a conversion to Catholicism (156). Brinkmeyer ends with a brief account of Percy's return to the passive evangelism of mere suggestion in The Second Coming, as a fitting continuation of The Last Gentleman.

The book includes a selected bibliography of primary and secondary sources on Percy, as well as an index of names and ideas.

Prepared as a requirement for Graduate Seminar
John R. May, Professor
Dept. of English
Louisiana State University
(Spring 1997)