List Books In Pursuance Of Love in the Ruins
| Original Title: | Love in the Ruins |
| ISBN: | 0312243111 (ISBN13: 9780312243111) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (1972) |
Walker Percy
Paperback | Pages: 416 pages Rating: 3.86 | 3246 Users | 262 Reviews
Details Containing Books Love in the Ruins
| Title | : | Love in the Ruins |
| Author | : | Walker Percy |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 416 pages |
| Published | : | September 4th 1999 by St. Martin's Press (first published 1971) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Literature. Classics. Novels. Christianity. Catholic. American. Southern |
Relation Supposing Books Love in the Ruins
“Jews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him.”― Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins
Every time I read Walker Percy I fall in love. I seduce myself into thinking I'm actually just a bad Catholic and promise myself that next time I get a chance I will lose myself in the desert, the woods, or anywhere I can see the cold stars and the burning sand and live forever somewhere in between.
Reading another Percy novel is like discovering an unopened can of cashews in the cupboard. The amount of joy and delight I get from reading and laughing at Percy's absurd view of religion, life, love, the modern era, etc., is really only approached by a handful of lightly salted cashews and sex. 'Love in the Ruins' is messy and weird and probably could have been edited a bit, but it ALL still works perfectly for me. I laughed through every paragraph and each mark of punctuation. Percy's bad, crazy genius, almost polygamist, Catholic protagonists speak to me in ways that most philosophers (old and new), preachers (godly and godless), and politicians (left or right) fail to. He seems to occupy the ground of the fellow traveler who is just as lost and mistaken as you, but possesses a bit more whit and some extra whiskey.
So where does this novel stack up? It was like a friendly dystopian novel. It was like McCarthy decided to write a comic novel. The vines of his morality slide and creep through every page and his humor dances like a purple martin at dusk. The book might only be objectively a four star novel, but this is my review dammit and I own and carry my biases and I love Walker Percy because he makes me want to both believe AND misbehave.
Rating Containing Books Love in the Ruins
Ratings: 3.86 From 3246 Users | 262 ReviewsAssess Containing Books Love in the Ruins
Walker Percy is a writer I read when I was attending a Jesuit University in the 1980s. I am a heathen these days but I am steeped in the traditions of the one true apostolic church. Percy writes from this familiar Catholic strain. I read his "lost in the Cosmos" and it struck a chord with me about the fallen condition and hope. Percy is writing a dystopian novel about a future a few decades after the time of writing from the vantage point of the early 1970s of an America which is extremelyJews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him. Walker Percy, Love in the RuinsEvery time I read Walker Percy I fall in love. I seduce myself into thinking I'm actually just a bad Catholic and promise myself that next time I get a chance I will lose myself in the desert, the woods, or anywhere I can see the cold stars and the burning sand and live forever somewhere in between.Reading another Percy novel is like discovering an unopened can of cashews in the
Jews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him. Walker Percy, Love in the RuinsEvery time I read Walker Percy I fall in love. I seduce myself into thinking I'm actually just a bad Catholic and promise myself that next time I get a chance I will lose myself in the desert, the woods, or anywhere I can see the cold stars and the burning sand and live forever somewhere in between.Reading another Percy novel is like discovering an unopened can of cashews in the
I sometimes can't decide if Love in The Ruins is my favorite or least favorite Percy novel. I enjoyed it a great deal upon a recent re-read. Perhaps it is because I'm now much closer in age to the protagonist and so better able to relate to his perspective. The absurdist nature of the story can be a bit confounding - and at times perhaps even a bit self indulgent. But, that very context allows Percy to explore from yet another angle the core theme of all his novels; the difficulty of finding
A quirky, absurdest, medical comedy set against the backdrop of the real-life oddity that is south Louisiana culture . An African American uprising, a sex laboratory (with a "panic" room), college educated hippies living in the swamp, a sniper in the abandoned golf club house, polygamy, Early Times whiskey... ...these are just some of the events and devices that Dr. Tom More encounters during the 3 day period over which the novel takes place. With sharp wit and sound wisdom, Percy explores the
This books reads like some dumpster baby of Kierkegaard and Clancy (Yes, Tom Clancy). The existential inquiries into man in the face of a culture whose pace or direction cares little for its constituents is, as in The Moviegoer, a wonderful one. Unfortunate for the fool who picks up this book to do more with it than crush a pill bug, that is about 2% of the book. The rest is a poorly edited barebones satire of autumn-century America, and as is the case with nearly all satire, difficult to keep
Well, that was different. Quite good actually, but pretty strange. And daring in a way that probably couldn't be published today.
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