Notes on The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Martin H. Fulmer

Professor Jeff Parker

Packet 2

March 15, 2012

Notes on The Moviegoer

--five parts that span a week in the life of thirty year old Binx Bolling right around mardi gras. First part has seven chapters, second part has twelve, third part has seven, fourth part has four chapters, and fifth part has but two chapters and is followed by an epilogue. I’m not sure I see how wp arrived at this design….

--Binx is a bachelor who asks his cousin to marry him. She’s his step-cousin, his uncle’s daughter and his blood aunt’s step-daughter, an emotionally troubled young woman named Kate. Binx and his aunt are constantly plotting behind Kate’s back how they can save her from herself. Even while Binx toys with the idea of marrying Kate, he’s seeing his secretary, which he’s done with other secretaries of his in the past. There was Linda, for instance, now there is Sharon. Sharon is from Alabama.

--The Moviegoer involves pop culture references and the narrative wanders in a way that reminds me of Under the Volcano. Binx is, of course, more sober than the Consul, but he leads a life validated by his identification cards that certify his right to exist, so to speak (check this reference—it needs citation—I’m paraphrasing, I think, but it’s close to the original). He later admires “the St. Louisan for his neat and well-ordered life, his gold pencil and his scissors-knife and his way of clipping articles on the convergence of the physical sciences and the social sciences; it comes over me that in the past few days my own life has gone to seed” (191). He continues to say, “I no longer eat and sleep regularly or write philosophical notes in my notebook and my finger-nails are dirty. The search has spoiled the pleasure of my tidy and ingenious life in Gentilly. As late as a week ago, such a phrase as ‘hopefully awaiting the gradual convergence of they physical sciences and the social sciences’ would have provoked no more than an ironic tingle or two at the back of my neck. Now it howls through the Ponchitoula Swamp, the very sound and soul of despair” (191). Several of the pop culture refs are to movie stars and various movies like Orson Wells’ The Third Man, which is a killer flick.

--Binx fought in the war and was wounded. When he was shot, he had the idea of the search. Now he tries to keep to the search as a way of staving off the malaise, which is a term Binx uses to describe his alienation.

--Sounds like Nietzche, or Edward Abbey, when Kate says, “They all think any minute I’m going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I’m as cheerful as a nit-wit. But if I could not kill myself—ah then, I would. I can do without Nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide” (195).

--Binx says, “marry me anyhow, and we can still walk abroad on a summer night, hope or no hope, shivering or not, and see a show and eat some oysters down on Magazine” (194), but Kate says, “No no” (ibid).

--I don’t believe Binx when he says, “Ten years ago I pursued beauty and gave no thought to money. I listened to the lovely tunes of Mahler and felt a sickness in my very soul. Now I pursue money and on the whole feel better” (196).

--Awesome line, “The highest moment of a malaisian’s life can be that moment when he mangages to sin like a proper human” (200).