I'm rereading Walker Percy's The Moviegoer (1962) and enjoying the epxperience immensely. The first time I read it was for Mrs. Lois Vick's Southern Writers class in the late 1970s; I'm reading the same copy I read then. The cover price is listed at $2.95, which reveals a basic link between time and inflation. Can you even get a used book for $2.95 now?
The Moviegoer is largely set in and around New Orleans and also Chicago; it's hard not think of Katrina interloping between my first read and second, and also of the massive earthquake that struck Japan today. All of which underscores the existential themes in Percy, not just in The Moviegoer but in his Lost in the Cosmos (1983), too, which I also recently reread.
On the good side of linear time, I've stuck with an essentially existential outlook without feeling stuck; on the down side, Mrs. Vick's son Mark died recently of a long debilitating disease, and was just a couple years older than I am. Mrs. Vick is now in her eighties. Time and mortality make an all-too-good fit. Yet -- perhaps illogically or non-rationally or just primally and absurdly -- I'm very happy to be alive and kicking. How about you?
Today's Rune: Harvest.
2 comments:
Hi, I'm Mrs. Vick's niece. Aunt Lois has Alzheimer's and she gave me her book collection before she got really bad. Could you please email me? I'd like to hear more about Aunt Lois's days as a professor.
Hi, Kristen -- I'd be happy to email you. My email address is:
efrance23@gmail.com
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