Dr. Thomas More is not made of the same material as his famous ancestor, St. Thomas More (“A Man for All Seasons”), martyr to Henry VIII and the author of “Utopia.” The modern Dr. More has never met a cause for which he would suffer inconvenience let alone death. Indeed, Dr. More suffers from alienation, existentialism, and doubt, yet he still clings to his Catholicism and whiskey.Walker Percy, also wrote “The Moviegoer,” which won the National Book Award. Whereas Flannery O'Connor, another Southern Catholic writer, regarded Catholicism as a timeless truth, Percy (according to biographer Paul Ellie) "saw it as akin to the Old South: ancient, noble, run-down, disrespected, clearly flawed and yet worth cherishing while it was still around." I return to this comic and philosophical novel due to the current fascination with the Apocalypse and doomsday-prepping. Percy presents a man battling alcoholism, despair, and expectation of the apocalypse (as imagined in 1971). But rather than stockpiling ammo and assault rifles, Dr. More holes up in a Howard Johnson with three women. He confides: Room 206 is stacked to the roof with canned food, fifteen cases of Early Times bourbon whiskey, and the World’s Great Books. Even if worst comes to worst, is there any reason why we cannot live happily together, sip toddies, eat Campbell’s chicken-and-rice, and spend the long summer evenings reading aloud from the World’s Great Books stacked right alongside the cases of Early Times, beginning with Homer’s first words: “Sing, O Goddess, the anger of Achilles?” (Dr. More obsesses over books about The First World War and fixates on the decline of Western Civilization and suffers from depression and acedia (spiritual apathy). He diagnoses himself: I, for example am a Roman Catholic, albeit a bad one. Some years ago, however, I stopped eating Christ in Communion, stopped going to mass, and have since fallen into a disorderly life. I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all. Generally I do as I please. Nevertheless, I still believe. He contrasts himself with his nurse, Ellen Oglethorpe: Ellen, though she is a strict churchgoer and a moral girl, does not believe in God. Rather does she believe in the Golden Rule and in doing right. On the whole she is embarrassed by the God business. But she does right. She doesn’t need God. What does God have to do with being honest, hard-working, chaste, upright, unselfish, etcetera? I on the other hand believe in God, the Jews, Christ, the whole business. Yet, I don’t do right. I am a Renaissance pope, an immoral believer. Between the two of us we might have saved Christianity. Instead we lost it. In further contrast to Tom and Ellen, is Tom's gnostic wife: “My poor wife, Doris, was ruined by books, not by dirty books but by clean books, not by depraved books but by spiritual books (Siddhartha, Atlas Shrugged). My wife, who began life as a cheerful Episcopalian from Virginia, became a priestess of the high places, but books ruined her. Beware of Episcopal women who take up with Ayn Rand and the Buddha." Why does Dr. More think the apocalypse is coming? He answers in the opening sentences of the novel: Now in These Dread Latter Days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last? Two more hours should tell the story. One way or the other. Either I am right and catastrophe will occur, or it won’t and I’m crazy. In either case the outlook is not so good. Is Dr. More right? Is he crazy? In either case, the outlook for you is great if you enjoy fizzing-fresh, countercultural prose with a purpose along with a stiff drink.February 23, 2013.
This is a cynical, farcical, joyful ride through the not-so-apocalyptic post-America. At the beginning, Percy tells us that the end of America has come, and what is left is a fractious, conceited, egoistic culture. The liberals have their manias, the conservatives theirs, and guerilla groups hold the perimeters of society. Hippies have withdrawn "to the swamp." Tom More is somewhere in the middle of it all--a bad Catholic whose only sorrow is his lack of penitence over his wicked ways.Yet More is brilliant and has a gadget that he hopes will one day restore the Western soul to the body once again and restore what was lost. The adventure follows More over the course of a few days, but meanders through his past as we learn about More and how we are like him.This is a creative novel full of humor, philosophical and religious feeling, and questioning what has brought Western culture so low.
What do You think about Love In The Ruins (1999)?
This is certainly a strange book. I read this just after reading Peter Augustine Lawler's Postmodernism Rightly Understood, which cleared up the philosophy behind the book. My general impression is that in this book Percy is settling into a didactic mode, which I don't mind since I find the theory interesting. But it could be hard to just drop in if you don't know what Percy means by “angelism,” or what he thinks of Descartes. Generally, it seems like the actions of Percy's protagonists are incomprehensible apart from some philosophical context, but if you've got that, then the books can be a great deal of fun—and edifying, too.
—William Randolph
Here is another slipstream/satire novel where the targets are The American South and America's political and religious troubles (at least as they were in the 70s, but it seems, at least to my own unschooled eye, to be the same troubles as today, only today we have more TV and internet). My friend Grieg said that Percy was trying to do what O'Connor did successfully. I suspect this statement is true. But behind it is another statement: which genre is more effective in asserting a morality (or better, critiquing a vice): postmodern satire, or modernist-punch-you-in-the-throat literature? No doubt the latter is more effective, but I feel like the former is probably more fun. My friend Nathan said he didn't see the point to this novel. I'm afraid it's true: there is no ultimate conclusion. Dr. Moore ends up in a similar predicament as he was in prior to the death of his daughter. The revolution/apocalypse does a The Hobbit on us and happens off stage. And the revolution/apocalypse ended up just being a general upset, not the big one. It is neat though when the government-big-business-liaison guy is banished with Dr. More's prayer to St. Thomas More, his namesake.The smartest part of the novel, and the coolest sf-conceit presented in the text, is Dr. More's Lapsometer readings. Narratively speaking, it functions as a quick and deep characterization device. Philosophically, it is a striking assessment of contemporary psychological ills. I'm ambivalent.
—Scott Kleinpeter
This is Walker Percy at his misanthropic, self-hating Catholic best. The story centers around Thomas More, a self-professed "bad Catholic" who loves women and whiskey a lot more than God or his fellow man. (He basically could care less for his fellow man, and he'd probably choose his beloved Early Times over women as well). What makes him appealing is his grasp of the human condition that he is faced with, where people are continually estranged from themselves and their own swirling desires. So, he invents a device designed to reconcile opposites within the human psyche.Of course, he is no different as he is in love with three women at once. This is set against a backdrop of political unrest and revolution. It's definitely a satire but it has plenty of serious parts and elements as well. I liked it. Awesome.
—Nathan
