He began to look forward to meeting Mort Prince. Some years ago he had read two of his novels and remembered them perfectly—he could remember perfectly every detail of a book he had read ten years ago or a conversation with his father fifteen years ago; it was the day before yesterday that gave him…
As the date denotes, this has been known for several years and has been widely covered: here is a follow up to this story. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to learn that Robert Coles, author of the solid Walker Percy: An American Search (1979) is also the man behind Bruce Springsteen’s America: The…
Man is certainly stark mad. He can’t make a worm, but he makes gods by the dozens. . . . “We can’t go back there,” she said. Her pale face loomed unsteadily in the darkness. He was thinking about the reciprocal ratio of love: was it ever so with the love of women that they…
Why is it that bad news is not so bad and good news not so good and what with the bad news being good, aye that is what makes her well and me sick? . . . Instead he was thinking of wars and death at home. On the days of bad news there was…
Born on this day. If you can’t make it to the upcoming Second Annual Walker Percy Weekend and you haven’t already seen this excellent documentary, check it out. existentialismLouisiananew orleansphilosophical literaturePhilosophyWalker PercyWalker Percy Weekendwin riley
I told her (I always remember the remote past first). ‘It was an orange-colored cotton twill sort of material.’ ‘That was my piqué,’ says she as normally as you please.” For some reason he flushed and fell silent. . . . Jamie—who, he was told, had a severe and atypical mononucleosis—saw him as a fellow…
He sized them up as Yankee sort of Southerners, the cheerful, prosperous go-getters one comes across in the upper South, in Knoxville maybe, or Bristol. “Where’re you from,” cried Mrs. Vaught in a mock-accusatory tone he recognized and knew how to respond to. “Ithaca,” he said, smiling. “Over in the Delta.” He felt himself molt.…
Two things were instantly apparent to the sentient engineer, whose sole gift, after all, was the knack of divining persons and situations. One was that he had been mistaken for a member of the staff. The other was that the stranger was concerned about a patient and that he, the stranger, had spent a great…
For the thousandth time Dr. Gamow looked at his patient—who sat as usual, alert and pleasant—and felt a small spasm of irritation. It was this amiability, he decided, which got on his nerves. There was a slyness about it and an opacity which put one off. It had not always been so between them. For…
Happy people were worse off in their happiness in museums than anywhere else, he had noticed sometime ago. In here the air was thick as mustard gas with ravenous particles which were stealing the substance from painting and viewer alike. Though the light was technically good, illuminating the paintings in an unexceptionable manner, it nevertheless…
manwithoutqualities 