Scan barcode
A review by sam_bizar_wilcox
The Movie-goer by Walker Percy
1.0
My patience has been tested. Percy's prose is strong and assured. His interest in alienation and narrative agency is relevant -- particularly for the period he was writing in. And yet...this novel is wholly unsuccessful for me. Here's the dilemma: Percy makes it clear his indebtedness to the European existentialists (opening with an epitaph from Kierkegaard) but does little else than graph the existentialist novel plot onto Louisiana soil, dulling the angst in the process, and notching up the cruelty. This can be excused. The bizarre racist caricatures, however, cannot. Nevermind the ending -- which boils down so gross and uncomfortable.
This was a novel I had wanted to love -- a man goes on a quest to understand his selfhood and place in society during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, with the Gulf Coast and Chicago serving as backdrops to his adventure. This sounded like it could have been an astute, atmospheric untangling of what it means to be alive in an otherwise unfeeling and unknowing universe. All the pieces were there, but Percy puts them together into an ugly, misshapen mess.
This was a novel I had wanted to love -- a man goes on a quest to understand his selfhood and place in society during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, with the Gulf Coast and Chicago serving as backdrops to his adventure. This sounded like it could have been an astute, atmospheric untangling of what it means to be alive in an otherwise unfeeling and unknowing universe. All the pieces were there, but Percy puts them together into an ugly, misshapen mess.