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The Abiding Mystery: A Profile of Walker Percy
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23704 |
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BOOK WORLD
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2 / 2004 |
3,584 Words |
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J.B. Cheaney
J.B. Cheaney is an author who lives in the Ozarks of Missouri.
Her second novel for young adults, The True Prince, was
published last fall by Knopf. She last wrote for The World
& I.
on Larry Woiwode. |
The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a castaway do? Why, he pokes around the neighborhood and doesn't miss a trick.
Thus does Binx Bolling instigate the action of Walker Percy's first novel, The Moviegoer. Unlike many existential heroes, Binx lives in a world that's not too bad. He earns good money in a job that makes few demands on him; he has no trouble getting dates and is continually meeting nice people. In spite of traumatic events that might have sent a less phlegmatic temperament around the bend, he remains agreeable. The only problem is that he's a dead man living in a dead world. Life is in the movies, where recognizable types play out old verities that used to be taught in church. But periodically Binx wakes up, like the castaway, to a strange and mysterious world. Everything may look the same, but he has changed. He's onto something. "Not to be onto something is to be in despair."
After encountering this character in more than one Percy novel, it's tempting to associate him with Percy himself, or at least to imagine the author's gently worn features and calm blue eyes in the face of Will Barrett or Dr. Tom More. He's like a friend who listens more than he talks, so pleasantly one may think he's in agreement. But then, a sideways glance or slight furrowing of brow raises the suspicion that he's listening on another level--perhaps, one might think, he's onto me. Highly possible, for Percy's abiding interest, which he acquired early and never abandoned, was the mystery at the heart of all human
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