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The Walker Percy Project

A Descriptive Annotation

Walker Percy and the Old Modern Age: Reflections on Language, Argument, and the Telling of Stories (Patricia Poteat, 1985)

Annotated by Donald Beale

Poteat, Patricia. Walker Percy and the Old Modern Age: Reflections on Language, Argument, and the Telling of Stories. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. xi, 177 pp.

According to Poteat, Walker Percy fails as an essayist because he succumbs to the very philosophical tradition that he denounces. Percy attacks the Cartesian inheritance of the Western philosophical tradition, the mind-body dualism that results in a reductionist view of self. As essayist, Percy attempts to establish a formal theory of man; in his attempt, he is compelled to employ the intellectual tools of the Cartesian tradition. The result is that he subverts his own endeavor. Poteat maintains that the language of science, used by Percy in his essays, is inadequate for describing individuals. "Even those shades of the human creature which do occasionally appear [in the essays] . . . are so immured in the abstract discourse of the philosopher-linguist-scientist as to be barely visible" (115).

On the other hand, Poteat considers the literary form a means of reflection and storytelling an act of knowing. Narrative fiction can identify and reverse alienation, while formal theorizing merely accentuates the existential condition, helping to separate the self from the world. The tools of the storyteller are superior. "As a storyteller, Percy possesses insight into the rigors of the human condition which is informed by humor, compassion, and love" (84); in his fiction, therefore, he is more successful as a thinker about men. The story that Percy tells, in particular, is that of the "news from across the sea," the Christian story. Poteat likens Percy the Storyteller to John the Baptist, who prepares the way for the one who is coming.

The book covers the first five novels (The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Lancelot, Love in the Ruins, The Second Coming) and The Message in the Bottle. The five chapters, framed by a Prologue and an Epilogue, are entitled "The Delta Factor," Percy as Storyteller, Percy as Philosophical Essayist, "The Message in the Bottle," and The Joys and Sorrows of Symbol-Mongering.

The book contains an index, but no bibliography (works are cited in footnotes).

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