The Moviegoer (1961) by Walker Percy

1,001 Novels List

The Moviegoer (1961)

by Walker Percy

New Orleans, Louisiana

Louisiana: 1/30

 I'm not sure where I read about The Moviegoer, Walker Percy's 1962 National Book Award Winner, but I found an Audiobook copy in the Libby Library act and I couldn't resist:  A National Book Award Winning author I've never heard of is irresistible.   I've noticed that Major Literary Prizes don't do a great job of picking titles that endure- most (all?) major literary prizes are decided by a committee so you are talking about horse-trading and compromise in the quest to pick a winner for any particular year.  Back in 1962, the National Book Award named nine finalists and one winner.  The Moviegoer beat Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was eligible to be nominated but did not make the list of finalists.  We Have Always Lived in the Castle was published in the eligibility period but didn't make the list of finalists.

   Is The Moviegoer better than any of those other books?  No.  But here you have it, the 1962 National Book Award.   An additional grounds to doubt the worthiness of this book as a prize winner is the fact that Percy never got close again, even though he continued to publish.   There is nothing wrong with winning a major literary prize with your first novel, but if you don't come close to doing it again it calls into question your literary legacy.   This leaves a contemporary reader asking the question, "Why?"

 I think, in this case, the answer is that was doing a regional variation on a theme that was still in vogue in 1961-62:  The existentialist anti-hero.  Percy's Moviegoer is a classic existentialist hero, like someone you might find in an early Jean Luc Godard film.  He is a college graduate, a returned Vietnam Vet and a stock broker in New Orleans.  It's worth observing that while Percy didn't make the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die List, this book is on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America, representing New Orleans.

  New Orleans is in Chapter 5: Blues & Bayous, Deltas & Coasts, which includes all the states from Florida to Louisiana.  Louisiana has 30 titles on the list, 13 of those are from the city of New Orleans.  

My sense is that while the existential hero AND southern literature were in style when he won, both trends have dropped in prominence over the past half century.   Percy also wrote The Moviegoer right before the 1960's revolution in culture, which means that it is going to get crowded out by books written after and books written before it was published.

  Is there any question that of the books mentioned in this post, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the most canonical title and that Catch-22, Revolutionary Road and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are better picks than this one.

Event Preview: Topographies, Secret Attraction & Trit95

 Event Preview

Topographies

Secret Attraction

& Trit95

Sunday February 18th, 2024

Genghis Cohen Los Angeles, CA.

 I saw they were down to 10 tickets for this show on Sunday which is going to be great! You can get tickets via the Dice APP, which is also great.  This show is a can't miss!

Show Review: Wisteria Residency Night 2 w/ CD Ghost & Active Decay

 Show Review

Wisteria Monday February Residency Night 2

w/ CD Ghost &

Active Decay

@ Zebulon Los Angeles, CA.

   Back for night two of the Wisteria residency- since it wasn't in the middle of the biggest rain storm in a generation, this night drew a bigger crowd- maybe also down to the fact that this line up could have just as easily drawn a paid crowd with the same bill (maybe not on a Monday night, but on a Friday for sure).   After 15 years of going out in San Diego, where Monday night bills are a mark of death unless you are a legit touring act (and even then they are rough), I've been astonished at the size of the Monday night crowds in Los Angeles.   Los Angeles is, by every indication, a much more fertile ground for local bands trying to put together a following.

   

  Openers Active Decay put out a record on local indie Lollipop Records- who got Crocodiles an NFL wear sync that made it all the way to the Super Bowl broadcast- opened.  I would say they are a work in progress.  They performed as a three piece with a dude in a tank top playing bass, a lady singer and a guy who sang and played guitar.  There was a drum machine, and a pretty big sax element that was done with backing tracks.  The guy and the girl both performed songs, sometimes backing one another, sometimes not.  I think the crowd reacted more positively to the songs sung by the dude, but the set was politely received by the already voluminous crowd.  The sound was gothy/romantic/new wavey with definite songs and lyrics, though said song writing and lyrics varied in quality from song to song.  I can certainly see where they are headed, and I'd wager it comes off smoother on record.  Anyway, all local bands are blessings, and all local bands deserve fervent support for the very fact of their existence and artistic will.

    Thankfully Wisteria played second tonight, sparing me the conflict of wrestling with the prospect of Tuesday's 4 AM alarm.  Finally! Wisteria.  I feel like I've been trying to see them for years.  They had a really striking visual set up- performing with no lighting in front of a bright white screen, which gave them the appearance of silhouettes.   A neat way to play off the fact that neither one of them are going to win any beauty contests. I thought the singer had a really interesting voice, like I'm going to go and listen to their records on Spotify now because I was so intrigued.  I thought having the other guy play drum pads on his synth set up was a good move- that should be a requirement for synthy two pieces- either you are singing or playing a guitar/bass or doing a drumming thing to break up the visual monotony of two guys behind matching synth arrays. 

   But my thought is that there is songwriting talent worth developing and that the live show backs it up- nothing stopping Wisteria from being a full-on national indie touring band if that's the direction they want to go. 

   It was my second time playing CD Ghost- they were outfitted more formally from the last show at Rubycon, where they looked like they had fallen out of a van fifteen minutes before show time.  The crowd was packed.  I respect the fact that they are self-released but I think a label with a good vinyl reputation could really help them get national level attention.  Looks like they have a national tour lined up and booking here and in the EU, so, if you are thinking about going to catch a show of theirs you should.

The Other Name (2019)by Jon Fosse

 Book Review

The Other Name (2019)

by Jon Fosse

  I guess one of the advantages to awarding the Nobel Prize is you can give it to your homeboys- like how Norwegian author/playwright Jon Fosse, who won in 2023.  Fosse is just about as un-hip a choice for the Nobel as you could possibly imagine.  True, his prose tends to be stream-of-consciousness style and his plots convoluted BUT he also writes incessantly about God and about characters who are broken and isolated from the world.

  Like many(few?), his Nobel win last year was a cue to actually tackle some of his books, so I started with the Audiobook of The Other Name which are parts I and II of his six volume Septology.  Septology is about a pair of Norwegian painters- both named Asle. One is an alcoholic drinking himself to death, the other is newly-ish sober and a convert to Catholicism.  Excited yet?

 I was glad to be tackling the Audiobook instead of the book- book- seems like the actual book would have been intolerable. 

We Are Gathered Here (1996) by Micah Perks

 1,001 Novels:  A Library of America

We Are Gathered Here (1996)

by Micah Perks

Adirondacks Park, New York

New York: 18/105

Upstate: 17/23

   I could have made a four book subcategory of the Adirondack Mountains, which takes up the whole northern third of New York state.  But, only four books from this area so, no subcategory.  I've never been to the Adirondacks, but the books from here resemble other books from the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  We Are Gathered Here is a work of historical fiction, about the friendship of two young women, one the epileptic child of wealth, confined to her grandfather's house in a last ditch attempt to cure her before she is committed to the state insane asylum (Utica, New York- represent!) and a local girl, the young bride of a Swedish immigrant coal miner and daughter of a local midwife.

  Perks deploy a ton of pieces on her thematic chess board- besides the obvious themes of  class, gender and sexuality there are also gypsies, a sect of renegade all female Shakers, union organizers and the afore mentioned state insane asylum in Utica.   Quite a stew!

The Monsters of Templeton (2008)by Lauren Groff

Author Lauren Groff

1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Monsters of Templeton (2008)

Cooperstown, New York

New York: 16/105

Upstate: 15/23

  I consider myself a fan of author Lauren Groff.  My thought is that she does have a major prize winning novel in her- she's already been a finalist for the National Book Award.  She's also prolific for a contemporary writer of literary fiction, averaging a new work every three to four years.  Finally, she's shown an ability to write about something other than herself- with forays into regional short story collections (Florida) and historical-literary fiction (The Matrix, The Vaster Wilds) from different time periods in history.  Fates and Furies was heavily laced with Greek mythology and this book, her first, has a strong element of the supernatural/magical realism with an appearance by a lake monster and a non-verbal ghost as a character. 

    She reminds me of Colson Whitehead in her efforts to blend genre appeal with the less audience friendly concerns of literary fiction- this book- her first- has several classic elements of the first novel- a university educated protagonist returns to her backwater hometown after some kind of trauma in her new life or old one.  This is a plot that is a frequent guest on the 1,0001 Novels list, I call it the Hallmark Movie plot. These books are, at the very least, said in said backwater small town, making them an excellent pick for the less-written about parts of the US.

  Groff awkwardly renames Cooperstown to Templeton and keeps the Baseball Hall of Fame generic- a real effort in the context of the gossipy tone of the references to said Hall of Fame and its impact on the community.  Half the book is pretty standard issue first novel stuff, the other half consists of a quest by the returning protagonist to uncover the identity of her father.   This involves a lot of historical research, which basically means half of The Monsters of Templeton is an epistolary novel, and tbh I could not be bothered to keep track of the quest of the narrator to find her poppa.  I mean, who cares?

 I saw this in the context of music more often but, the idea of a character in a work- a book- a song- who is an adolescent girl or post adolescent girl who is having trouble with some big decisions and spends a lot of time crying in her room- that is the most relatable trope and therefore it is super popular and there are a ton of artists who do it, and do it well, but it is, ultimately, all the same.  It's all the same in the same way that romantic poetry from the 18th and 19th century is all the same until you get to someone like Ezra Pound.   I'm not saying it's all BAD just that it covers that same thematic/artistic territory over and over again.