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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Reading this and it's hard not to frame it in light of other "well-off men in search of meaning" books and stories, with arguably Mad Men - openly influenced by this novel - finally killing the genre. Still a damn fine novel with fine prose, gleeful/reverent condemnation of Southern bourgeois manners, with a Trauma Plot decades before that was a thing, though the ending felt too conventional. A New Leaf, speaking of films and media, did it better.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Racial slurs, Terminal illness
Moderate: Racism, Sexism, Suicide attempt, War, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Walker Percy founded his literary career on the phenomenon of inauthenticity in the American South and Binx Bolling is a true captain of that krewe. Binx emerges full fledged from the soil of Kiergaardian aestheticism, imagining that he is some kind of hero on a "vertical search" for enlightenment while his chief occupation is getting lost in the movies and chasing women. Percy's power as a novelist is in evidence here-- the Moveigoer is at least as entertaining as Kierkegaard's best selling "Diary of a Seducer," but with a dubious and puzzling ending.
Binx Bolling is a grand aesthete in the Kierkegaardian tradition. He even appropriates by name some of Kierkegaard's trademark notions -- repetition, rotation, despair (the "malaise") -- and demonstrates how they function for the practicing aesthete. This is where the novel shines. By all rights Binx should just wander off into the swamp like a proper existentialist hero and let us wallow in his unhappiness. But instead of a good old bleak denouement Percy gives Binx a half-hearted Hollywood ending, inspired by the sight of a man emerging from church on Ash Wednesday. It isn't clear if faith suddenly descends on Binx or if this is Binx's appropriation of a religious experience for aesthetic purposes, or perhaps this is Percy's comment on the randomness of grace... but as a concluding statement it is all too vague.
Binx Bolling is a grand aesthete in the Kierkegaardian tradition. He even appropriates by name some of Kierkegaard's trademark notions -- repetition, rotation, despair (the "malaise") -- and demonstrates how they function for the practicing aesthete. This is where the novel shines. By all rights Binx should just wander off into the swamp like a proper existentialist hero and let us wallow in his unhappiness. But instead of a good old bleak denouement Percy gives Binx a half-hearted Hollywood ending, inspired by the sight of a man emerging from church on Ash Wednesday. It isn't clear if faith suddenly descends on Binx or if this is Binx's appropriation of a religious experience for aesthetic purposes, or perhaps this is Percy's comment on the randomness of grace... but as a concluding statement it is all too vague.
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A book about a certain type of living as you move out of adolescence that is perhaps best enjoyed as you live it. At times the style was too halting and sparse for my taste, at times it felt rich and vivid. The action leaves a lot of weight on the feeling (the similarity to/influence of existentialism at play, perhaps; not unlike Nausea), which I felt a bit distant from in my own 30th year. That said, still pleasant and funny, and wraps up nicely with a sense that at the end of the day it’s usually more important to live than to worry about how to live, even if you don’t really understand why you’re doing it.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
“This is another thing about the world which is upsidedown: all the friendly and likable people seem dead to me; only the haters seem alive.”