Signposts in a Strange Land

by Walker Percy

  Why is that? Why aren’t people interested?

  Because there are two kinds of people, laymen and scientists. The layman doesn’t see any mystery. Since he is a languaged creature and sees everything through the mirror of language, asking him to consider the nature of language is like asking a fish to consider the nature of water. He cannot imagine its absence, so he cannot consider its presence. To the layman, language is a transparent humdrum affair. Where is the mystery? People see things, are given the names of things when they are children, have thoughts, which they learn to express in words and sentences, talk and listen, read and write. So where is the mystery? That’s the general lay attitude toward language. On the other hand, there are the theorists of language, who are very much aware of the mystery and who practice such esoteric and abstruse disciplines as transformational generative grammar, formal semantics, semiotics, and who, by and large, have their heads up their asses and can’t even be understood by fellow specialists. They remind me of nothing so much as the Scholastics of the fifteenth century, who would argue about the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.

  Haven’t you written something about a theory of language?

  Yes.

  Could you summarize your thoughts on the subject?

  No.

  Why not?

  It is not worth the trouble. What is involved in a theory of language is a theory of man, and people are not interested. Despite the catastrophes of this century and man’s total failure to understand himself and deal with himself, people still labor under the illusion that a theory of man exists. It doesn’t. As bad and confused as things are, they have to get even worse before people realize they don’t have the faintest idea what sort of creature man is. Then they might want to know. Until then, one is wasting one’s time. I’m not interested in butting my head against a stone wall. I’ve written something on the subject. Maybe ten years from now, fifty years from now, some people will be interested. That’s their affair. People are not really interested in science nowadays. They are interested in pseudo-scientific mysteries.

  Like what?

  Laymen are more interested in such things as the Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, hypnotic regression, Atlantis, astrology—pseudo-mysteries. Scientists are more interested in teaching apes to talk than in finding out why people talk. It is one of the peculiarities of the age that scientists are more interested in spending millions of dollars and man-hours trying to teach chimps to use language in order to prove that language is not a unique property of man than in studying the property itself. Scientists tend to be dogmatic about the nature of man. Again they remind me of the Scholastics battling with Galileo. Scholastics spent thousands of man-hours inside their heads trying to prove that Jupiter couldn’t have moons and that the earth was at the center of the universe. To suggest otherwise offended their sense of the order of things. Galileo pointed to his telescope: Why don’t you take a look? Today we have plenty of Scholastics of language. What we need is a Galileo who is willing to take a look at it.

  You still haven’t said what you think of Jimmy Carter.

  No.

  There is an extraordinary divergence of opinion. Some say he is the greatest of all Southern con artists, that everything he says and does in the way of humility, sincerity, honesty, love, brotherhood, and so forth, is an act, a calculated living-up to an image. Others say that these virtues are real. Which is it?

  Is there a difference?

  Moving right along … This is a pleasant room we’re sitting in, overlooking a pleasant bayou.

  Yes, it is. It is still a pretty country, despite the fact that the white man did his best to ruin it, ran the Indian off, cut down all the trees.

  Is that a portrait of you over the fireplace?

  Yes. It was done by an artist friend of mine, Lyn Hill. I like it very much.

  I don’t quite get it. What’s going on there?

  It shows me—well, not exactly me, a version of me—standing in front of what seems to be another framed painting. A picture within a picture, so to speak.

  What does it mean to you?

  I can only say what I see. The artist may very well disagree, but, after all, the subject and viewer is entitled to his own ideas—like a book reviewer. I identify the subject of the portrait as a kind of composite of the protagonists of my novels, but most especially Lancelot. He is not too attractive a fellow and something of a nut besides. As we say in the South, he’s mean as a yard dog. It is not a flattering portrait—he is not the sort of fellow you’d like to go fishing with. He is, as usual, somewhat out of it, out of the world that is framed off behind him. Where is he? It is an undisclosed place, a kind of limbo. It’s a dark place—look at that background; if one believed in auras, his would be a foreboding one. It is a kind of desert, a bombed-out place, a place after the end of the world, a no-man’s-land of blasted trees and barbed wire. As for him, he is neither admirable nor attractive. Rather, he is cold-eyed and sardonic. There is a gleam in his eyes, a muted and dubious satisfaction. He is looking straight at the viewer, soliciting him ironically: You and I know something, don’t we? Or do we? Or rather: The chances are ninety-nine in a hundred you don’t know, but on the other hand you might be the one in a hundred who does—not that it makes much difference. True, this is a strange world I’m in, but what about the world you’re in? Have you noticed it lately? Are we on to something, you and I? Probably not.

  But look at this apocalyptic world behind him. Something is going on. Is he aware of it? The dead blasted tree is undergoing a transformation. Into—? Into what? A bound figure? Figures? A woman? Lovers? The no-man’s-land barbed wire is not really wire but a brier and it is blooming! A rose! Behind him there is a window of sorts, an opening out of his dark world onto a lovely seascape/skyscape. A new world! Yet he goes on looking straight at the viewer, challenging him: Yes, I know about it, but do you? If you do, well and good. If you don’t, there’s no use in my telling you or turning around and pointing it out. There’s a limit to what writers can tell readers and artists can tell viewers. Perhaps he is Lancelot with the world and his life in ruins around him, but there is a prospect of a new world in the Shenandoah Valley. There was something wrong with the old world, the old things, the old flowers, the old skies, old clouds—or something wrong with his way of seeing them. They were used up. They have to be seen anew. Here is a new sky, a new sea, a new rose …

  Could you say something about your debt to Kierkegaard?

  No.

  Could you at least explicate the painting in Kierkegaardian terms

  If I do, will you leave me alone?

  Yes.

  Very well, I see the painting as depicting the very beginning of the Kierkegaardian stages of life—which can apply to an individual, a people, an age. It is the dawn of the aesthetic stage, the emergence of life from death, of light from darkness, the first utterance of words between people. The desert is just beginning to flower and there is the possibility that there may be survivors after the catastrophe. He, somewhat sardonic and smart-assed as usual, knows it but does not want to give away the secret too easily. So he keeps his own counsel, except for the faintest glimmer in his eye—of risibility, even hope?—which says to the viewer: I doubt if you know what’s going on, but then again you just might. Do you?

  Do you understand?

  No.

  1977

  Bibliography and Notes

  I. LIFE IN THE SOUTH

  WHY I LIVE WHERE ILIVE, Esquire 93 (April 1980): 35-37.

  NEW ORLEANS MON AMOUR, Harper’s 237 (September 1968): 80-82, 86, 88, 90.

  THE CITY OF THE DEAD, Lord John Press (19073 Los Alimos Street, Northridge, California), 1984.

  GOING BACK TO GEORGIA, printed in pamphlet form by the University of Georgia, 1978.

  MISSISSIPPI: THE FALLEN PARADISE, Harper’s 230 (April 1965): 166-72. Reprinted with variants in The South Today: 100 Years After Appomattox, edited by Willie Morris (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp.
66-79 (text used here).

  UNCLE WILL, originally entitled “Introduction” to Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son, by William Alexander Percy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973), pp. vii-xviii.

  UNCLE WILL’S HOUSE, Architectural Digest, October 1984: 44, 50, 54.

  A BETTER LOUISIANA, originally entitled “Charting Our Future: Improving Education is the Key to a Better Louisiana,” The Times-Picayune / The States-Item (New Orleans), May 23, 1985: A-25.

  THE AMERICAN WAR, Commonweal 65 (March 29, 1957): 655-57.

  RED, WHITE, AND BLUE-GRAY, Commonweal 75 (December 22, 1961): 337-39

  STOICISM IN THE SOUTH, Commonweal 64 (July 6, 1956): 342-44.

  A SOUTHERN VIEW, America 97 (July 20, 1957): 428-29.

  THE SOUTHERN MODERATE, Commonweal 67 (December 13, 1957): 279-82.

  BOURBON, Esquire 84 (December 1975): 148-49. Recipe taken from the reprint of “Bourbon,” Palaemon Press (Winston-Salem, North Carolina), 1981.

  II. SCIENCE, LANGUAGE, LITERATURE

  IS A THEORY OF MAN POSSIBLE? [Unpublished].

  NAMING AND BEING, The Personalist 41 (April 1960): 148-57.

  THE STATE OF THE NOVEL: DYINGARTOR NEW SCIENCE? The Michigan Quarterly Review 16 (Fall 1977): 359-73.

  NOVEL-WRITING IN ANAPOCALYPTIC TIME (New Orleans, Louisiana: Faust Publishing, 1986).

  HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN NOVELIST INSPITE OF BEING SOUTHERN AND CATHOLIC, University of Southwestern Louisiana Printing Services (Lafayette, Louisiana), 1984.

  FROM FACTS TO FICTION, Washington Post Book Week, December 25, 1966: 6, 9.

  PHYSICIAN AS NOVELIST, Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture (Rockford, Illinois: The Rockford Institute) 3 (May 1989): 10-12.

  HERMAN MELVILLE, The New Criterion 2 (November 1983): 39-42.

  DIAGNOSING THE MODERN MALAISE (New Orleans, Louisiana: Faust Publishing, 1985).

  EUDORA WELTY IN JACKSON, Shenandoah 20 (Spring 1969): 37-38.

  FOREWORD TO “A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES” by John Kennedy Toole (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), pp. v-vii.

  REDISCOVERING “A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ,” originally entitled “Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz: A Rediscovery,” The Southern Review 7 (April 1971): 572-78.

  THE MOVIE MAGAZINE: A LOW “SLICK,” Carolina Magazine 64 (March 1935): 4-9.

  ACCEPTING THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR “THE MOVIEGOER” [Unpublished].

  CONCERNING “LOVE IN THE RUINS,” talk at the 1971 National Book Award Spring Press Conference [Unpublished].

  THE COMINGCRISIS IN PSYCHIATRY, America 96 (January 5, 1957): 391-93. (January 12, 1957): 415-18.

  THE CULTURE CRITICS, Commonweal 70 (June 5, 1959): 247-50.

  THE FATEFUL RIFT: THE SAN ANDREAS FAULT IN THE MODERN MIND, excerpted as “The Divided Creature” in The Wilson Quarterly 13 (Summer 1987): 77-87 [Unpublished in final form].

  III. MORALITY AND RELIGION

  CULTURE, THE CHURCH, AND EVANGELIZATION [Unpublished].

  WHY ARE YOU A CATHOLIC? first published in Living Philosophies: The Reflections of Some Eminent Men and Women of Our Time, edited by Clifton Fadiman (New York: Doubleday, 1990), pp. 165-76.

  A “CRANKY NOVELIST” REFLECTS ON THE CHURCH, The Quarterly (St. Benedict, Louisiana: St. Joseph Seminary College) 1 (Summer1983): 1-3, 6.

  THE FAILURE AND THE HOPE, Katallagete (Journal of the Committee of Southern Churchmen) (Berea, Kentucky: Berea College) 1 (December 1965): 16-21.

  A VIEW OF ABORTION, WITH SOMETHING TO OFFEND EVERYBODY, The New York Times, June 8, 1981: A-15.

  FOREWORD TO “THE NEW CATHOLICS,” edited by Dan O’Neill (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp. xiii-xv.

  IF I HAD FIVE MINUTES WITH THE POPE, America 157 (September 12-19, 1987): 127-29.

  AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO THE “TIMES,” The Human Life Review 14 (Spring 1988): 49-51.

  ANOTHER MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE [“From a Writer to Shipwrecked Teachers, or Why Should Students Read Novels Instead of Watching the Tube?” Unpublished].

  THE HOLINESS OF THE ORDINARY, Boston College Magazine 48 (Summer 1989): 25-26.

  EPILOGUE

  INTERVIEW WITH ZOLTÁNABÁDI-NAGY, The Paris Review103 (Summer 1987): 50-81.

  QUESTIONS THEY NEVER ASKED ME, Esquire 88 (December 1977): 170, 172, 184, 186, 188, 190, 193-94.

  The dates at the end of each essay, speech, letter, or interview refer to initial dates of publication.

  A Biography of Walker Percy

  By Judy Khan

  When Walker Percy was diagnosed with tuberculosis at twenty-six, what might have seemed a serious setback for a recent medical school graduate turned into a life-altering career change. During the years Percy spent recovering at Trudeau Sanatorium in upstate New York, reading literature and religion, falling under the spell of European existential philosophers such as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Søren Kierkegaard, he turned his focus from healing bodies to healing souls. Returning to his native South, he married Mary Bernice Townsend, converted to Catholicism, and settled into the life of a writer/philosopher. Like the Europeans he admired, he expressed his fascination with philosophy in fictional form, publishing six novels before his death at home in Covington, Louisiana, in 1990.

  With the publication of his first novel, The Moviegoer (1961), which won the National Book Award, Percy was immediately recognized as a leading Southern writer. His handling of major existential themes such as alienation, loss of faith, and search for meaning, expressed through the characters of Binx Bolling and Kate Cutrer, left no doubt that he was a writer of great philosophical depth.

  Walker Percy was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1916. Undoubtedly his thematic concerns reflected his own childhood tragedies of losing his grandfather and father to suicide and, soon after, his mother to a car accident. Walker and his two brothers were adopted by a cousin, William Alexander Percy (“Uncle Will”), a lawyer, writer, and Southern traditionalist living in Greenville, Mississippi, whose values shaped the Moviegoer character Aunt Emily.

  But it’s Binx, a Korean War veteran and New Orleans stockbroker, who most clearly embodies Percy’s own brand of Christian existentialism. Though Binx’s daily activities of making money in the stock market, sexually pursuing a series of secretaries, and moviegoing might seem shallow and avoidant, his inner life is anything but. Internally, he observes and interprets life according to “the search,” a complex philosophical stance of how to live in a world where the traditional values of religious faith and Southern stoicism are crumbling. His female counterpart, Kate, is also adrift after the death of her mother when Kate was still a young girl. Filled with anxiety, at times suicidal, Kate seeks refuge in familial rebellion, pills, and the one person who understands her—Binx. For Kate, Binx’s search is an antic preoccupation; for Binx it is an existential quest of the highest order.

  As readers, we might not see the overlapping consciousness that develops between these two isolated southerners, nor do we necessarily see Binx’s movement toward conversion. Yet the novel’s conclusion suggests that salvation can be achieved, that freedom from despair is possible, and that an authentic life can be lived.

  Percy outside his family’s home on Arlington Avenue in Birmingham, Alabama. Percy traced his earliest memories, such as watching a Krazy Kat cartoon at a local movie theater, back to his childhood in this neighborhood.

  Percy (standing at right) with his father, LeRoy Percy Sr., and his younger brother, LeRoy Percy Jr. Percy’s father, a successful lawyer and Princeton alumnus, suffered frequent bouts of anxiety and depression. In 1929, like his own father a few years earlier, the elder LeRoy committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Shortly thereafter, Walker lost his mother in a car crash that was deemed an accident. These events haunted Percy throughout his life and shaped some of the thematic concerns of his fiction.

  Walker (right) with his brothers, LeRoy (middle) and Phinizy (left), during their years in Birmingham.

 
Percy as a pre-med student at UNC-Chapel Hill, “on the way to Charlotte at the beginning of the holidays.” When asked why he chose to study medicine Percy said, “Everybody in my family had been lawyers, it was a tradition in my family to be going into law. And I knew damn well I didn’t want to do that.”

  A picture of Percy taken in New York while he was a medical student at Columbia University. During his internship at Bellevue Hospital, Percy contracted tuberculosis and was prescribed a “rest cure.” He spent the next few years reading literature seriously and eventually began working on a manuscript titled The Charterhouse, which he later destroyed.

  Walker (middle) with brother LeRoy (left) and lifelong friend Shelby Foote (right) outside the home of Walker and LeRoy’s cousin, William Alexander Percy, in Greenville, Mississippi. Called “Uncle Will,” William Alexander Percy, an accomplished poet and memoirist, raised Walker and his siblings after their mother’s death. Walker described going to live with his cousin as “the most important thing that ever happened to me as far as my writing is concerned. I never would have been a writer without his influence.”

  Percy celebrating Christmas with his wife, Mary Bernice, called Bunt, and his two daughters, Ann Boyd and Mary Pratt, in 1956. Although he had yet to produce a publishable novel, that year he had cause to celebrate when one of his first philosophical articles, “The Man on the Train,” appeared in the fall issue of Partisan Review, an esteemed literary journal.

  A publicity photo of Percy taken at Pach Brothers, a famous New York City portrait studio, in 1972 for the release of Love in the Ruins. In Percy’s view the novel dealt with “the decline and fall of the U.S., the country rent almost hopelessly between the rural knot headed right and the godless alienated left, worse than the Civil War.”