Second Coming

Rating:
Summary: "Our cool Dostoevsky"?
Review: My used copy of this book has a quote that refers to Percy as "our cool Dostoevsky," which begins to make sense after reading The Second Coming. I'd previously read The Moviegoer, and while I enjoyed it, it seemed more psychological than the Southern literature with which I was familiar.

The Second Coming did little to change this, incidentally. It's told from the perspective of two people in different stages of losing their minds. It's exceedingly dry and hard to read at some points, but at others it flies by. There is little "redemption" in the Christian sense to speak of until the very last page of the book, but one still walks away feeling cleansed in some way. It's odd, and hard to review.

As another reviewer has noted, the characters do seem to be devoid of emotion at points, but I prefer to believe that this is on purpose--as Percy points out, both believers and unbelievers have lost their way in the South, and, as Allie and Will are caught in between these two groups, it makes sense to have them confused and emotionless at times.

The Second Coming was good enough to make me want to check out some more of Percy's novels, but it wasn't earth-shatteringly good. It's still worth you're time if you're interested in psychology, the South, or religion and how they relate to individuals.

Rating:
Summary: An incredible book
Review: One of my all-time favorite novels; I've probably read it four or five times. Percy is a writer of intense depth and subtlety. He embraces existentialism on his own terms (Southern, Catholic, ingenious...) and gives the reader clues about finding authenticity in his or her own life. The most amazing part of this book is the ending, which gives us a sad hope in a world that has been made flat with smiling, jocular hopelessness. Read this book, then read it again.

Rating:
Summary: A truly beautiful novel!!
Review: Percy is a brilliant writer to say the least. Here is a tale which has been masterfully concieved and beautifully told. There are many things going on in the story, but to me it is a story of never giving up. It is a story that anyone who has called themself a Christian, then an atheist, then neither, can relate to. It is the story of suffering and rebirth. It is indeed the story of a second coming.

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Summary: Great Literature!!!
Review: Read it and find out

Rating:
Summary: Percy's most commercial and still brilliant . . .
Review: The Second Coming sold surprisingly well, probably because it features a quirky love story and has one of the most original openings I've ever encountered. The young heroine has just completed a course of electroshock therapy. Although the procedure leaves her amnesic, she is able to learn what she needs to know by consulting a letter she wrote to herself prior to the last session.

Based on that tantalizing start, you might expect a quick moving plot and a tale of conspiracy. No dice. This is Walker Percy. What you're going to get is an exploration of the human psyche and how we manage to get lost from ourselves. It's not a roller coaster ride, but that's not why we read Walker Percy. His readers sail into uncharted oceans.

Rating:
Summary: Percy's most commercial and still brilliant . . .
Review: The Second Coming sold surprisingly well, probably because it features a quirky love story and has one of the most original openings I've ever encountered. The young heroine has just completed a course of electroshock therapy. Although the procedure leaves her amnesic, she is able to learn what she needs to know by consulting a letter she wrote to herself prior to the last session.

Based on that tantalizing start, you might expect a quick moving plot and a tale of conspiracy. No dice. This is Walker Percy. What you're going to get is an exploration of the human psyche and how we manage to get lost from ourselves. It's not a roller coaster ride, but that's not why we read Walker Percy. His readers sail into uncharted oceans.

Rating:
Summary: one of my 5 most favorite books...love in all its forms...
Review: This gentle yet shocking tale of love and awakening moves me each time I read it...Percy is able to evoke a mood which carries this reader along in a diffused southern light, drawing clear-lined characters and spinning a tale I hated to see come to a finish....but I can always read it agai

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Summary: The cornerstone of twentieth-century "thinking" ...
Review: THIS is the book that ALL "modern thinkers" of the day have plagarized from, over and over again !! I feel cheated because I didn't read this sooner, and because I didn't give Percy the credit HE deserved ... Percy had thought of, and THROUGH, everything there is to struggle with in this "thing" we call "modern faith." Sure, the language is this book is a bit harsh at times; but in the [paraphrased] words of Flannery O'Connor, sometimes you need to write in big, bold, RED letters to be heard, and understood, and accepted. Fortunately, there's enough in this book elsewhere that's redeeming enough to "excuse" the occasional F-word. So what, I ask of all perspective readers of this book, is worse: the believers [who are intolerable]; or the unbelievers [who are insane] ??

Happy reading, my friends.

Rating:
Summary: Wise and Beautiful
Review: When I read books, I mark up the text and write in the margins pretty thoroughly, and when I am finished with the book, I go back through and copy down my favorite passages. Usually there is only one or two quotes to write down, but The Second Coming was a different matter. Walker Percy has such extraordinary insights and power with words that passage after passage, with their humor, wisdom, and beauty, pierces straight through me. It took me two hours to copy all of the passages I wanted.

The Second Coming is one of the greatest novels that I have ever read, and that is partly because of the quirky story at its heart. Will Barrett, a rich and successful widower, is trapped in his life, a sort of living death. His big first step begins to happen in the first wonderful episode of the novel when he is playing golf and begins to realize it. "Knowing about what is going to happen is having a chance to escape it. If you don't know about it, it will certainly happen to you." From there, Will begins to try to find how to live his life. The other primary character is Allison, a girl escaped from a mental hospital now trying to find out how to live in a world totally new to her. Together, they embark on a quest to be born again into life.

The Second Coming is one of the greatest novels I have ever read. Percy was trained as a physician, and he took those skills to literature. In The Second Coming, he diagnoses American society and tries to find a cure. There is some real wisdom there and most importantly, some real hope. This is a novel that is vastly underrated and one that should not be missed (along with all of Percy's other novels).

Rating:
Summary: The ordinary life
Review: Will and Allie search for...what? Each at some point in his/her journey comes to realize that he finds joy in the "ordinariness" of life---there is a beautiful passage which follows Allie as she goes exultantly about the task of completing her "to do" list. The list is the type familiar to us all: go to the doctor; go to the market; check the car, etc. (albeit her missions at each are perhaps not so familiar to us all). But whereas most of us weary sometime at even the thought of all the things "to do," Allie revels in completing each job. The last speech (a soliloquy of thought) by Father Weatherbee should be reread by most of us everyday and committed to memory till we are happy! Mr. Percy has written a book which lets us know that we can find what we do not even know we are missing.