A review by deegee24
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

3.0

This is a good novel, but I don't think it deserves its reputation as a modern classic. If you take away the mildly existentialist musings of the narrator, what you have is pretty ordinary and shallow--another novel about a white male bachelor going through a mid-life crisis. It's like a Southern version of Updike. Percy's prose style is distinctive and the major characters are well-drawn, but the minor characters are two-dimensional (the black characters especially are treated with racist condescension). The theme of moviegoing was intriguing, but Percy drops it midway through this short book, so it doesn't resonate as strongly as it should. The descriptions of suburban New Orleans were convincing, but again, they don't cut very deep.