[percy-l] Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, Seen Again by Paul Elie (Podcast)

Thomas Gollier tgollier at gmail.com
Fri Jan 10 11:51:44 EST 2020


Lauren,

I liked your message in response the Paul Elie's lecture. Binx does find
love, an I-Thou relationship, but what I
liked about 'The Moviegoer' was where he found it. Paul Elie says:

   His sense of what a writer does — and this owed in part to his
philosophy and in part to a southern upbringing
   — was that communication is intersubjective. You don't write for
yourself, you write to reach another
   person, and it takes two to make a truth and then you dick over that
truth, and you figure something else out.
   So his philosophical essays were diminished by the lack of an audience.

Binx finds love, as Walker Percy finds truth, in 'everydayness'. The search
for Binx leads to and back from the
movies and Aunt Emily's cultural mores, like for Percy it leads him to and
back from semiotic and existential
philosophy, to where it began. I like to think Percy didn't sweat "the lack
of an audience" for either his
philosophical essays or his literary novels. He was speaking to neither
philosophers nor critics but to individuals
living in their 'everydayness'. And to what can be found there. It's not
surprising he had to be back-doored into
the National Book Award and literature, and too bad that hasn't quite
happened with philosophy.

Thanks,
Tom

On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 6:49 AM Lauren Berdy <lauren.stacy.berdy at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I listened carefully.
>
> It was the crucial act of Dr Percy
> At least for these eyes to show
> us the desolate decline of love
> In the world.
> And
> Showing us the daring adventure of
> Human relations
> The quicksand of our mental
> Possessiveness
> And that self possession can be
> Restored
> Even the Moviegoer filled withdeep life illusions Ends with an
> I and a thou
> We are that I and thou
> That’s the mystery
> It’s nuff for this one reader
>
> Reread
> “Allie and Will“ dialogues
> Poems of illumination
> Out of the dark cave into the illumined light of love.
>
> “ deep might call unto deep”
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 8, 2020, at 12:05 AM, Henry P. Mills <wppdirector at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Percy-L:
>
> Perhaps this recent, close revisit to *The Moviegoer* by Mr. Elie could
> be a good start to 2020. As always, comments to the community are
> welcome. Enjoy!
>
> Henry Mills
> Percy-L Administrator
>
> _________________________________________________
>
> *Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, Seen Again by Paul Elie*
>
> This lecture by Prof. Paul Elie (Georgetown) was given as part of "The
> Moral Imagination of the Novel", a conference held at Columbia University
> on 4-5 October 2019.
>
> The conference was co-hosted by the Morningside Institute, Columbia
> University's Department of Philosophy, and the Thomistic Institute.
>
>
> https://www.morningsideinstitute.org/podcast/2019/10/30/walker-percys-the-moviegoer-seen-again-paul-elie
>
>
>
>
>
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