Rating: 
Summary: Slow Paced
Review: I read this book with a friend who I discuss books with at the library every month and I have to say I had to really struggle to finish it. This book is very slow paced and I lost interest very quickly. When Binx talked about his search in the beginning I was interested on where this would lead but afterwards there really wasn't any more mentions of his search. Most of the characters were kind of bland and I couldn't care for them with one exception, Lonnie, Binx's handicapped half brother. I'm sorry to say that I didn't really like this book because I really had high expectations for it.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating novel
Review: What a great book! Most of the literature I've read on the "search for meaning" (i.e. "The Plague," etc.) has really left me cold, but this novel made this topic come alive. (Oh, God, that's so cliche- Sorry) I actually read this novel twice, once because I had to for my A.P. Composition class and again because I loved the language so much. There are so few truly original voices in modern American fiction, and Walker Percy strikes me as one of them. I would highly recommend this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Modern despair?
Review: A constant theme in the work of Walker Percy is the notion of modern despair. This is evident not only in this bleak but beautiful novel, but also in his book, Lost in the Cosmos, and his other works of fiction, which mostly deal with modern man trying to live in an age of physical and psychological dislocation. The main character in Percy's first and perhaps greatest novel is Binx Bolling, a stock broker and deal maker who cruises through life on intellectual and spiritual automatic pilot. Or so it seems at times. He woos women with near indifference, finds his social connections with ticket sellers and ushers at movie theaters and tries half heartedly to sustain his connections with his family, and Kate, a woman always on the edge of despair who begs Binx, should they marry, to always tell her exactly what to do and how. These are not characters infused with life, but going through the motions, overwhelmed, at times, by the sadness of existence. Binx lost a brother when he was eight years old. A fiance of Kate dies in a car accident, which she survives. In the face of such loss, they are on emotional idle. Binx worries about a world of sameness (a concern of many southerners not enthralled with modern commercial culture that homogenizes all experience) and so he must engage the workers at the theater to ensure he is not living "outside of space and time." The end is supposed to be uplifting, by some accounts, because Binx stumbles across a kind of faith, even at the loss of a beloved boy relative. But when he sends Kate to run an errand, and tells her exactly what to do, keeping his promise, we are faced with her despair, even if he has found a reason to live or instruct.... I am not sure I enjoyed this novel, but it was riveting at times. Percy writes beautifully here with understated power.
Rating:
Summary: The Searcher
Review: The Searcher "The Moviegoer" is about a successful New Orleans stockbroker longing for that something other than the "everydayness" (i.e."despair" in Kierkegaardian or secular existentialism) of his existence. He indulges in the trappings of the silver screen because that's where "happiness costs so little." Our protagonist, Binx Bolling, often loses himself in the realm of life imitates art. He likes to assume the screen personna of Gregory Peck and fantasizes actresses to become his secretary. Most of all, he thinks there is nothing better than having the likes of William Holden in person lunching in town and looking for a match. For that lucky person who offers the match to Holden, he would be "certified" as having being someone in the cosmos. On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, however, Binx Bolling realizes by relying on and acting out the cinematic reality is faith misplaced. He decides to search out what's real and true to him (Kierkegaardian existentialism says the highest truth existing is the subjectivity truth). Since it's first publication in 1961, "The Moviegoer" has become a standard reference in academia, philosophical commentaries, and Sunday sermons. There are many ways to parse, dissect, and critique this classic Walker Percy's work. If the prospective reader can relate to this pivotal passage, he should read the book. Here in this excerpt, Binx Bolling confides to the reader what he thinks about his search: "Until recent years, I read only fundamental' books, that is, key books on key subjects, such as War and Peace , the novel of novels ; A Study of History, the solution of the problem of time; Schroedinger's What is Life?, Einstein's The Universe as I see It , and such. During those years I stood outside the universe and sought to understand it. I lived in my room as an Anyone living Anywhere and read fundamental books and only for diversion took walks around the neighborhood and saw an occasional movie. Certainly it did not matter to me where I was when I read such a book as The Expanding Universe. The greatest success of this enterprise, which I call my vertical search, came one night when I sat in a hotel room in Birmingham and read a book called The Chemistry of Life . When I finished it, it seemed to me that the main goals of my search were reached or were in principle reachable, whereupon I went out and saw a movie called "It Happened One Night" which was itself very good. A memorable night. The only difficulty was that though the universe had been disposed of, I myself was left over. There I lay in my hotel room with my search over yet still obliged to draw one breath and then the next. But now I have undertaken a different kind of search, a horizontal search. As a consequence, what takes place in my room is less important. What is important is what I shall find when I leave my room and wander in the neighborhood. Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion." Certainly this multifaceted and edifying story is well worth the reading. The fuel that propels this story is Percy's unique narrative style in using both present and past tenses. Perhaps his medical training or his three years spent in psychoanalysis during his residency had had an influence. At any rate, as the first-person narrator, Binx Bolling's present tense narration draws the reader close in "real time" and be intimate with the former in thought and action. When Bolling finds it necessary to digress or to fill-in the reader on the particulars of the past, he tells it in past tense. But Percy's writing is so good, the two tenses blurred as one. Aspiring writers who struggle with writing in present or past tense should take note. Truth and great literature perhaps do exist. If not, Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer" can point the way to those who seek one or the other. Or both. I have one complaint about the book though. Binx Bolling and his fiance, Kate Cutrer, had discussed the possibility of moving to my hometown, Modesto, California, after they married. Oh how I wanted to be certified by the Bollings and to bath in the aura of their reality. Alas, it didn't happen. I will continue my search for the next Bollings who want to live in Modesto.
Rating:
Summary: Shrugging Off the Everydayness.
Review: I was surprised, as a 24-year-old female, that I was able to relate to so much in this novel. Things are written in a subtle manner and I found that the messages/feelings came to me almost subliminally. I went for a walk, to ponder some of the passages, and things didn't look or feel the same anymore. I overheard conversations that took on new meanings. Everything no longer felt... right. In this story, Binx Bolling his a relatively passive guy, taking in the occational movie, taking up with the occational girl, taking care of his business. But it becomes apparent to him that there should be some meaning to what's going on. When did life get so numbingly regular? At one point, he has a conversation with an aquaintance and when they they are through talking, they part "laughing and dead". Binx' cousin, Kate, is a quietly frustrated 25-year-old girl. She doesn't know what she wants from life, from herself or from her family. She rides an emotional rollercoaster from withdrawn depression to outgoing euphoria. What makes her story so sad is that you see how false her euphoria is and you know things will go back to being the way they were. The more you learn about her from the things she says and the more you learn about Binx through his personal narrative, you know that if there's anyone that will understand her, it's him. This is a deceptive book. The less observant might not see the words for all the truth they project. This is one of those rare books that caused me to suffer vertigo while sitting down.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading several times
Review: This is a very "situated" book: although the themes might be supposed to be universal (Kiekegaardian despair, "malaise," and so forth), the book only started to make sense to me on a second reading and after I'd visited New Orleans and spent some time living in and travelling through the American South. Subtly and without ever taking on the appearance of a philosophical treatise, the novel explores existentialist ideas of despair and authenticity in the specific context of 1950s America. More than anything else I've read to date, _The Moviegoer_ has given the beginnings of an intuitive feel for what the existentialists are trying to capture with these concepts.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting approach to redemption
Review: I have to admit this book was not on my top picks for a read, but it was recommended to me, and I am glad I dove in. Percy tells an interesting tale about redemption through the eyes of someone going through a serious depression. The way the story is written it leaves some items open to reader interpretation and gives you space to add your own experiences. It is a fairly easy read and worth picking up. I can see why it grabbed an National Book Award.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and unexpected
Review: I picked this book up after discovering it on many people's lists of must-read novels. I had to attempt reading it twice. The first time I think I came in with different expectations as to what the book was really about and had an adverse reaction to the main character, Binx. I don't come from southern culture and have never been to New Orleans, and I found myself disliking just about every character I encountered. Binx was creepy and disconnected and selfish, and seemed to have an opinion or social box for and abouy every person he came into contact with. He is on a search that to me was just every day late-20's angst. I had to stop reading. I left it for a year, and determined not to be beaten and also convinced that I was not "getting it", I gave it another try. I made it through and found a whole new world of beauty in the words. I was struck again and again by the unexpectedness of Percy's descriptions of places, thoughts, and emotions; meaning they were unusual and perfect and consistently made me think and smile. I still found Binx to be creepy and selfish initially, but I hung in there to see his eventual transformation. There is also a good deal of humor that I missed the first time around. It also helped me tremendously to read with a "southern accent" going on in my head the whole time. One other point that I find cool--about halfway through it hit me how difficult it must be to write an entire novel from the first person, from only one person's point of view, and keep it interesting and deep, which Percy does extraordinarily well. I rarely reread books, but this one may have to be on my shelf for a return journey.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't relate
Review: Percy's novel is ostensibly the continual reflections of an uninteresting main character. Very little in the book seemed to interest me and I ended up donating it to the Salvation Army about three fourths of the way through. (Hopefully whoever winds up with it has a comfortable bed.)
The Moviegoer seemed to be nothing more than a journal of a wealthy, middle-aged man's neurosis. That in itself could make for quite an engrossing story if the main character had some sort of limited appeal. Percy's does not.
I can't seem to understand where the enjoyment in this work derives from. It doesn't seem to be written in a particularly stylish manner and it certainly has mediocre plot development at best. It just seemed to drone on and on without ever conjuring up even a mildly interesting passage. Perhaps its audience during its initial release (if I remember correctly it was published in the late forties or early fifties) could relate to and appreciate the stuffy character presented. Being a gullible Generation Xer I simply had no frame of reference, and definitely wasn't aided in getting any by Percy, to even have some sort of sympathy for the story or the middle-aged dude profiled therein.
Rating:
Summary: a nicely written, uneventful episode
Review: The characters are uninteresting or annoying and the delicately built pay-offs are mostly juvanile and obvious. But this is not to say that The Moviegoer is a bad book. It is genuine, sincere, a study of unimaginitive people in the years past the Southern gentry cliches who are in one sense or another trying to hold onto the ideas of a world that no doubt never existed. The character of Kate, in particular, is irritating, one of those humorless, hyper-sensative morons who people for some reason pity and make a great fuss over with 'there, there(s)' and 'poor girl(s) . . .' My hopes were that she actually would kill herself and give the other characters the motivation to stop walking around so tender-footed and in anticipation of what she might do or say. The prose is very good, simple, rather nostalgic--perhaps overly polite, but it tells the story with ease and (again)obvious understatement and understanding while making too much of a fuss over philosophical and theological underpinnings that finally serve no purpose to the plot or characters and gently guide you along to the pre-ordained happy ending. Recommended highly for those who like their angst on the tame side and their outcomes to be filled with warmth and easy resolutions. Three-and-a-half stars rounded up because Percy is such a fine writer.
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