Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
"Walker Percy's fictional world is the affluent upper-middle-class world of the American South where his protagonists desperately search for some relief from a relentless psychic malaise that their professional achievements and great golf games are helpless to ameliorate.
Will Barrett in The Last Gentleman and The Second Coming and Tom More in Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome know something has "gone wrong" in their lives - something that has transformed their American Dream pursuit of happiness into a daily struggle to endure their work at their offices and to tolerate their relationships with their families and friends.
They know they are living a "death in life," but, ironically, it is this painful recognition of their predicament that provides them with the impetus for a search for an alternative fullness of life that has so far eluded them." "The stories of Will and Tom in these four novels are Percy's most thorough presentation of the "grave predicament" of the alienated and anxious twentieth-century self.".
"In a close textual analysis of the imagery and symbolism in The Last Gentleman. The Second Coming, Love in the Ruins, and The Thanatos Syndrome, Pridgen shows how Will and Tom, after a lifetime of blindness to these sacramental signs, begin to see anew. Percy's parabolic narratives depict those two making their "unseeing" way through symbolic sacramental landscapes toward a new knowledge of themselves and the world.
Sometimes oblivious to the sacramental signs of life, sometimes clear-eyed, both Will at the end of The Second Coming and Tom at the end of The Thanatos Syndrome finally assent to the wondrous possibilities these signs signify. They begin to believe in the possibilities for a life that waits for them on the horizon and down the road."--BOOK JACKET.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Subjects
American Religious fiction, Criticism and interpretation, Deserts in literature, History and criticism, Landscape in literature, Quests (Expeditions) in literature, Sacraments in literature, Symbolism in literature, Landscapes in literature, Percy, walker, 1916-1990, American fiction, history and criticismPeople
Walker Percy (1916-)Showing 1 featured edition. View all 1 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
Walker Percy's sacramental landscapes: the search in the desert
2000, Susquehanna University Press, Associated University Press
in English
1575910403 9781575910406
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-253) and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?July 13, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
July 31, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
July 28, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
December 6, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Added subjects from MARC records. |
December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |