Walker Percy
Paperback | Pages: 416 pages Rating: 3.87 | 2186 Users | 158 Reviews
Declare Appertaining To Books The Last Gentleman
| Title | : | The Last Gentleman |
| Author | : | Walker Percy |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 416 pages |
| Published | : | September 4th 1999 by Picador USA (first published 1966) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Literature. Novels. American. Southern. Classics |
Explanation During Books The Last Gentleman
Will Barrett is a 25-year-old wanderer from the South living in New York City, detached from his roots and with no plans for the future—until the purchase of a telescope sets off a romance and changes his life forever.Publisher: Spring Arbor/Ingram.
Point Books As The Last Gentleman
| Original Title: | The Last Gentleman |
| ISBN: | 0312243081 (ISBN13: 9780312243081) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (1967) |
Rating Appertaining To Books The Last Gentleman
Ratings: 3.87 From 2186 Users | 158 ReviewsJudge Appertaining To Books The Last Gentleman
This one didn't do it for me. There were some interesting trains of thought and ideas and some lovely description. Interesting that the main character suffers from mental issues and goes into spurts of amnesia and fugue states, but the way this is written is too difficult, cumbersome, annoying for the reader to follow. I did not relate to nor care for any of the characters. Or rather I did not feel emotionally invested in their journeys. The journey of the main character, the engineer, feltThis was an unusual reading experience for me. I slogged through the book and the story never gripped me. I even considered giving it up about 100 pages in. However, I was always conscious of the undeniable skill of the author and wanted to find out how he ended the story. He had something very tangible to say that was developing in a seemingly disconnected, but very unique way. I may come back and write a review after I mull things over, because this is a remarkable book with a powerful ending.
This is my 2nd try at Walker Percy, the first being The Moviegoer, which won the 1962 National Book Award for Fiction and was on TIME's list of the 100 best English language novels since 1923, and both have been 1 stars for me. As with The Moviegoer, the book is mostly existential nonsense. I can handle no plot if the dialogue is profound enough, but here it's not. I should have stopped with The Moviegoer.
I am a Percy addict, I admit it, and a vein full of this didn't help. Percy's novels are like non-fiction disguised as fiction, which I think throws a lot of people. He has ideas, and fiction is a vehicle for them. But just like with O'Connor, you can read his books without having a clue about the author's ideas and still love them for the literature they are. Percy's turns of phrase alone make his stuff worth reading. And boy, did this one get me. Starts out like a quaint, good-ish book,
Whether it be Brooklyn or Birmingham I seldom appreciate accounts of banal domesticity, neurosis laden diaries. I have really made poor choices lately. ** I am however a huge fan of Walker Percy, and though I disliked this, I realize that description might fit 50% of his work. ***This was the one that completes my list of every novel he has written. I'm aware The Moviegoer should be one I object to, but I love it. My ultimate WP favorite is The Thanatos Syndrome. (Oh, correction: I just noted
Walker Percy's second novel also picaresque Southern gentleman's look at the world going on around him as he tries to fit in while making sense. It's a straight telling with stable plot points well limned but always from the unreliable narrator Will Barret who with bouts of deja vus and/or fugues where amnesia leaves holes to memory yet takes us through a series of events beginning in New York city parks on into the deep south in or about the mid-to late sixties or so frame. There is an
I liked this book the first time I read it ten years ago, but it stuck me much more profoundly upon this recent re-reading. Percy tackles many issues in this book, all of which ultimately relate to how meaning and thus life itself can be possible in a demystified and inverted modern world. There is a fair amount of farce in The Last Gentleman, but it is farce in service of a serious purpose - the exploration of the absurdity of so much that is taken for granted. The path forward Percy suggests
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