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The Walker Percy Project

A Descriptive Annotation

Prophecy in American Fiction: A Study of the Novels of Walker Percy (George Madathiparampil, 1980)

Annotated by Izumi Taniyama

Madathiparampil, George. Prophecy in American Fiction: A Study of the Novels of Walker Percy. Changanacherry: Sandesanilayam Press, 1980. xix, 151 pp.

In the "Forward" of this book, Lewis Lawson mentions that it may take a reader like George Madathiparampil who has a "non-American" view of things to realize what Percy is saying in his novels. Madathiparampil deals with five of Percy's novels — The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, Lancelot, and The Second Coming — all of which echo Percy's criticism of the spiritual bankruptcy of the modern age and, moreover, weave together his denunciation of the material values prevalent in the modern age. The five chapters are entitled "Novelist — Prophet," "Criticism of Modern Society," "Stages of Existence," "Intersubjectivity," and "Graham Greene and Percy."

The major approach of this book centers upon Percy's prophetic task as a novelist. Pointing out that Percy's own conception of the role of the novelist is that of a prophet, Madathiparampil regards Percy as a prophet to the modern world, carrying on the tradition of the Old Testament prophets whose dual function was critical as well as redemptive: "The critical task consists in attacking, denouncing, and judging the moral degeneration, religious indifferences, and the pagan worship of their contemporaries, while the redemptive task is concerned with the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation with God" (22). According to Madathiparampil, in these novels that expose the sickness of the modern age — the malaise or the spirit of alienation — Percy describes the limitation of scientific technology, and attacks the materialistic pursuits of contemporary men and the deeply entrenched idol of secularism in the heart of modern society. Percy implies that in order to achieve his spiritual recovery, modern man must realize he is a "wayfarer." Although Percy does not conspicuously use "Church symbols," its rites, or theological doctrines in his novels, he offers a vision of life based on Christian values as the only alternative open to modern man to escape the spirit of alienation.

Madathiparampil demonstrates the two aspects of Percy's prophetic task as a novelist. The first, the critical, involves Percy's criticism of the secularism of modern society, shown by various characters both openly through their words and implicitly through their lifestyles. Like the hero of the postmodern novel in Percy's eyes, his own hero is a man "who has forgotten his bad memories and conquered his present ills" and whose only "problem now is to keep from blowing his brains out" (qtd. in Madathiparampil 12). In addition, Madathiparampil observes the other prophetic task, the redemptive, from the viewpoint of Percy's indebtedness to Kierkegaard's philosophy in his incorporation of the Christian faith. At the same time, the author demonstrates the working of Kierkegaard's categories of existence in Percy's fiction.

The book contains both a "List of Works Consulted" and an "Index" of proper names. Works by Kierkegaard, Lawson, and Marcel stand out among those listed.

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