Rating: 
Summary: A gentleman observes female beauty
Review: I would like to draw attention to Mr. Percy's focus on the gentleman's approach to observing female beauty. He shows us what goes through a gentleman's mind when he is in love, and the results are poetic. Binx Bolling captures in his elegant observations the essence of female beauty, from the perspective of a man who is in awe of such beauty:"Her back is turned to me, but obliquely, so that I can see the line of her cheek with its whorl of down..." This is a man overcome by feeling for a beautiful woman. This is a man who can put such feeling into words.
Rating: 
Summary: Existential angst in the Big Easy
Review: Although the author is an excellent wordsmith, the novel is largely a chore to read. There is no real plot, just alot or rambling introspection. I suspect there is a measure of crypto-autobiography in the book. Unless, you enjoy vicarious despair,your time would be better spent watching a Clint Eastwood movie.
Rating:
Summary: A Book That Should Be Read . . . And Then Read Again
Review: Walker Percy was forty-six years old when his first published novel, "The Moviegoer," was awarded the National Book Award in 1962. It was, in some sense, the public beginning of the second half of Percy's life for, as Percy himself wrote in 1972: "Life is much stranger than art-and often more geometrical. My life breaks exactly in half: 1st half=growing up Southern and medical; 2nd half=imposing art on 1st half." But what, exactly, did Percy mean when he said this? In some sense, "The Moviegoer" is the beginning of an answer. Percy was born in 1915 and lived his early life in Birmingham, Alabama. His grandfather committed suicide when Walker was an infant and his father, too, committed suicide in 1929. Following his father's suicide, his mother moved Walker and his two brothers to Mississippi. Percy's family was one of the oldest families in the South and he and his brothers soon found a father figure in the form of his cousin, William Alexander Percy, known affectionately as Uncle Will. Three years after his father's suicide, Percy's life was again marked by tragedy when his mother's car went off a bridge, killing her and leaving Walker and his brothers in the charge of his Uncle Will. Percy went to medical school at Columbia University, where he contracted tuberculosis during his internship. In and out of sanitariums for several years, he finally returned to the South in his early 30s, getting married in 1946 and settling in the New Orleans area, where he lived the remainder of his life. It was at this time that Percy received an inheritance from his Uncle Will that allowed him to devote himself completely to his long-standing interest in literature and philosophy. I relate the biographical details because, as you read "The Moviegoer," it seems (not surprisingly) heavily marked by Percy's life experience, the author's biography being one point of reference for the novel. "The Moviegoer" is a peculiarly American and belated expression of the existential novel that had been so brilliantly articulated in France by Albert Camus. Like "The Stranger," Percy's novel focuses on meaning-in this case, the obsession of Binx Bolling, the novel's narrator, on what he calls the "search". As Bolling says at one point, "the search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life." And exactly what does this mean? "To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair." An enigmatic definition, but one which makes the reader who spends time with "The Moviegoer," who reads the book carefully and reflectively, to think more deeply about his or her own life. "The Moviegoer" is not a novel dominated by plot. At a superficial level, the novel relates, in a wry and matter-of-fact way, a few days in the seemingly unremarkable life of Bolling, a New Orleans stockbroker whose main activities are going to the movies and carrying on with each of his successive secretaries. "Once I thought of going into law or medicine or even pure science. I even dreamed of doing something great. But there is much to be said for giving up such grand ambitions and living the most ordinary life imaginable, a life without the old longings; selling stocks and bonds and mutual funds; quitting work at five o'clock like everyone else; having a girl and perhaps one day settling down and raising a flock of Marcias and Sandras and Lindas of my own." What "The Moviegoer" suggests is resonant of Thoreau's contention that most men lead lives of quiet desperation. But it is a desperation that arises not from the ordinariness of everyday lives, but, rather, from the failure to transform that ordinariness through contemplation and self-reflection, through an appreciation for the mundane. Thus, in the book's epigraph, Percy quotes Kierkegaard: "the specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair." As Percy has suggested in another of his books, "Lost in the Cosmos" (a work of non-fiction subtitled "The Last Self-Help Book"), we inhabit a society of alienated and despairing "non-suicides" who Percy wanted to transform, through his writing, into "ex-suicides". In Binx Bolling's words: "For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead. It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of the sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death . . . At times it seems that the conversation is spoken by automatons who have no choice in what they say." "The Moviegoer" is a thoughtful and a thought-provoking book that should be read and then re-read, slowly and carefully, for every paragraph is laden with insight into the character of its narrator, the character of its author and, ultimately, the character of ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmm....
Review: What a strange assortment of characters... Binx Bolling, a meek New Orleans stockbroker, definitely lives in his own little world, and I'm not sure if I'm better off for having seen inside of it. It's a little disturbing, but there are moments when I agreed perfectly with how he felt. That's scary! I'm not sure if I can recommend this book. It is very good. It is different. It is disturbing. You make the call.
Rating:
Summary: Lost in the Cosmos
Review: Binx Bolling, a Korean War veteran, is about to turn thirty and he apparantly has some talent as a financial advisor. Binx comes from a wealthy New Orleans family and is idealized by his great aunt Emily who is the matriarch of the Bolling family. Emily though tries to micro manage Binx' life and he feels somehow unworthy of her adoration Binx' problem is that he wonders what life is really about and in particular what is his own life is supposed to be about. His search for meaning takes him to see movies all over the metro 'Big Easy' and chase the skirts of the various secretary that happens to work for him at the time. Binx finds analogies to life in the various movies that he sees. Adding to Binx'complications is his cousin Kate, who is an emotional wreck. Kate's emotions may or may not have been the result of the death of her fiance in an automobile wreck in which Kate herself was injured. Binx is counted on by the family as being able to help Kate through some of her more difficult times. Binx attributes his success with Kate as his ability to accept her mood swings without emotion; Kate is simply being Kate and her behaviour is typical and predictable if you compare it to how Kate acts. At the spur of the moment, Binx and Kate go off together to a convention in Chicago and this really upsets Aunt Emily, who also happens to be Kate's stepmother. Emily and Binx are able to repair thier relationship as Emily finally decides to stop traeting Binx like the prodigal son and instead like a normal person with flaws just like everyone else. Somehow this book misses its point and leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Is Binx' aloofness in any way a result of his war eperience? Do Binx and Kate really love each other or are they simply convenient for each other given their oddness? Does Binx truly achieve a repriesal from the malaise that he considered life to be?
Rating:
Summary: Good message, but somehow, wasn't moving
Review: Binx Bolling is suffering a pre-mid life crises, where his whole life is a mere nothing of what he expects. Through the novel, he tries to find meaning and takes a spur of the moment trip to New Orleans with a girl named Kate. Though it deals with an issue that concerns us all at one point of our life - the absence of purpose, it does it in a way that is too unreadable to really enjoy Percy's vision. Though I liked the message, I felt that the plot, if you want to call it a plot, didn't move. Granted, Percy is not trying to tell a story but portray a critical point of one man's life, the novel doesn't grab the reader's attention. It's not a light read, and this is a real disservice because it deals with a concern that many more people could relate to.
Rating:
Summary: It sure worked for me!
Review: The Moviegoer throws the typical American identity crisis into relief; my father claims the Asian counterpart to Walker Percy would be Beyond the Earth and the Sky or some similar Buddhist account of spiritual growth. My first reading of this novel left me somewhat confused, as seems to be the problem for many who rate this book poorly. The trick is to understand Percy's mindset before you approach this monster in particular. If this book seems intriguing, but you don't love it, try Love in the Ruins. It's more straightforward, funnier, and as a bonus offers bizarre view of the present as future from the 60s. Then as you look back on the Moviegoer, you'll love it so much more.
The main thing I can say about The Moviegoer is this: it's a wonderful book, but it either works for you or it doesn't. A previous reviewer criticized the book's message (of being lost in the world) because with God, you can't be lost. This is more of an idealogical differing of opinion than a fault in the novel. The topic of religion, interestingly enough, is directly addressed in other Percy. He, like me, and many others, thought of himself as a "bad Catholic." If you ever thought of yourself in this way, trust me - this crazy whisky-downing southerner will be right up your alley.
Rating: 
Summary: Dreary and Dull
Review: I read this book because it was recommeded by Phillip Yancy, whose books I find thought provoking and entertaining. However, The Moviegoer left me feeling depressed and it was a chore to read through to the end because of the book's slow pace. The main character struggles with the feeling that life is meaningless and seeks cheap thrills to put off his feelings of malaise. Yet, the book leaves you with the impression that the author struggled with the same feelings and never found the answer to his discontent. However, there is a God in Heaven who loves us and put us here for a purpose - to love others. I regret spending time reading a book whose theme is contrary to our purpose in life.
Rating:
Summary: A pleasant short novel
Review: The protagonist of Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer" has one of the best literary nicknames ever. John "Binx" Bolling is a 29-year-old New Orleans stockbroker who works for his uncle. He is obsessed with a "search," defined by him as "what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life." Maybe that's why the only thing he really enjoys in life is going to the movies; there is something magical about the silver screen that makes the lives of the people in the movies seem special compared to his own. As if to emulate the rashness of the movies, he has made a habit of dating his secretaries, the latest of whom is a lively girl named Sharon who can teach him a thing or two about capriciousness. Binx has a younger cousin named Kate who is something between a sister and a girlfriend to him. Six years ago her fiance died in a car accident, and since then she has been neurotic, nervous, and moody, and denies that her pill-swallowing episodes are suicide attempts. Her stepmother (Binx's aunt) refuses to let her be an adult and is furious with Binx when he takes her with him on a business trip to Chicago. Obviously Binx and Kate are in love with each other, but their relationship is difficult to understand. Unlike in the movies, there are not many events in "The Moviegoer"; it is more about character development and the complexity of social and familial intercourse. We meet Binx's mother, stepfather, and many half-brothers and sisters, whose rustic lives on a bayou contrast sharply with the genteel Southern aristocracy of his aunt and uncle. Walker Percy writes like a cross between F. Scott Fitzgerald, employing lush metaphorical prose, and Flannery O'Connor, exhibiting a distinctly Southern flair steeped in Catholic imagery. The synergy of these elements has created quite a pleasant short novel.
Rating:
Summary: Complex.
Review: I didn't get everything there was to learn from this book on my first read. The plot itself isn't complex, but the observations and thoughts of the main character are. This is the kind of book in which I can turn to any random page and have something interesting to think about. There's a lot of ideas that go straight over my head when I read it the first time, but when I've randomly flipped to the page and read a passage over again, it makes much more sense. I guess it's like a philosophy text in a way, because it's so full of observations that make you think... that said, it's definitely worth multiple readings. The only thing I didn't like about the book was its "non-timelessness". Although the main character values the particular place and time in which he lives (and therefore takes note of those kinds of things), which is good, it's still hard for me to relate to a particular idea in the book when the idea is explained using cultural symbols of the 1950's or 60's as metaphors. For instance, I have no idea who most of the actors and films the main character talks about, or what many of the described material things specific to the era or to the deep south are. So when he uses one of these symbols as a metaphor for an idea, I can't understand the metaphor because I have no idea what the symbol is. Other than that minor quibble, though, the book is very thought-provoking, beautifully (and humorously) written, and it's got a beautiful depiction of the deep south (what can I say, I'm obsessed with New Orleans).
| 
