Signposts in a Strange Land: Essays
At his death in 1990, Walker Percy left a considerable legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Assembled in Signposts in a Strange Land, these essays on language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South display the imaginative versatility of an author considered by many to be one the greatest modern American writers.\ \ \ At the time of his death in 1990, Walker Percy left a considerable legacy of uncollected non-fiction. Now...
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At his death in 1990, Walker Percy left a considerable legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Assembled in Signposts in a Strange Land, these essays on language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South display the imaginative versatility of an author considered by many to be one the greatest modern American writers.Publishers Weekly``Bourbon does for me what the piece of cake did for Proust,'' writes Percy in one of his sparkling, fluent essays on the South. Other pieces with Southern themes collected here deal with the Civil War, New Orleans, cemeteries, race relations and why this eminent novelist, who died last May, chose to live in a ``nonplace''--Covington, La. The remainder of these previously uncollected essays range widely over literature, science, morality and religion. Arguing that modern science ``cannot utter a single word'' about what is distinctive in human behavior, art and thought, Percy turns to semiotics for the beginnings of ``a coherent science of man.'' Modern fiction, he contends, serves a diagnostic and cognitive role in revealing us to ourselves in a century of spiritual disorientation. Other selections cover movie magazines, psychiatry, abortion (he opposes it), Eudora Welty and Moby Dick. Samway is literary editor of America and author of a book on Faulkner. (Aug.)
Why I Live Where I LiveNew Orleans Mon AmourThe City of the DeadGoing Back to GeorgiaMississippi: The Fallen ParadiseUncle WillUncle Will's HouseA Better LouisianaThe American WarRed, White, and Blue-GrayStoicism in the SouthA Southern ViewThe Southern ModerateBourbonIs a Theory of Man Possible?Naming and BeingThe State of the Novel: Dying Art or New Science?Novel-Writing in an Apocalyptic TimeHow to Be an American Novelist in Spite of Being Southern and CatholicFrom Facts to FictionPhysician as NovelistHerman MelvilleDiagnosing the Modern MalaiseEudora Welty in JacksonForeword to A Confederacy of DuncesRediscovering A Canticle for LeibowitzThe Movie Magazine: A Low "Slick"Accepting the National Book Award for The MoviegoerConcerning Love in the RuinsThe Coming Crisis in PsychiatryThe Culture CriticsThe Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern MindCulture, the Church, and EvangelizationWhy Are You a Catholic?A "Cranky Novelist" Reflects on the ChurchThe Failure and the HopeA View of Abortion, with Something to Offend EverybodyForeword to The New CatholicsIf I Had Five Minutes with the PopeAn Unpublished Letter to the TimesAnother Message in the BottleThe Holiness of the OrdinaryAn Interview with Zoltan Abadi-NagiQuestions They Never Asked MeBibliography Notes
\ From the Publisher"These moving pieces of nonfiction, some quite brief and terse, others more relaxed and spacious, offer 'signposts' that will help us understand not only the 'strange land' that is late-20th-century America, but the extraordinary mind of an especially alert and knowing observer."--Robert Coles, Boston Sunday Globe\ "Tart, lively, and likeable. You come away admiring not only the writer's sense and sensibility, his sophistication and intelligence, but, more important, his wisdom and courage."—George Core, The Washington Post Book World\ "Percy is always intelligent, always civilized, never blind to his opponents' point of view."—Evelyn Toynton, The New York Times Book Review\ "Remarkably revealing . . . Signposts shows Percy in all of his moral and intellectual grandeur . . . What shines through, however, is Percy's fundamental decency, his compassiona for the human predicament, and his abundant love for humanity."--Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times\ \ \ \ \ \ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ ``Bourbon does for me what the piece of cake did for Proust,'' writes Percy in one of his sparkling, fluent essays on the South. Other pieces with Southern themes collected here deal with the Civil War, New Orleans, cemeteries, race relations and why this eminent novelist, who died last May, chose to live in a ``nonplace''--Covington, La. The remainder of these previously uncollected essays range widely over literature, science, morality and religion. Arguing that modern science ``cannot utter a single word'' about what is distinctive in human behavior, art and thought, Percy turns to semiotics for the beginnings of ``a coherent science of man.'' Modern fiction, he contends, serves a diagnostic and cognitive role in revealing us to ourselves in a century of spiritual disorientation. Other selections cover movie magazines, psychiatry, abortion (he opposes it), Eudora Welty and Moby Dick. Samway is literary editor of America and author of a book on Faulkner. (Aug.)\ \ \ Library JournalEminent physician/novelist Percy ( The Moviegoer ) died in 1990. Accumulated here are many uncollected essays, several seeing publication for the first time, grouped under three headings conceptually central to Percy's thought: life in the South; the relationship of science, language, and literature; and morality/religion. Sometimes dense (``Is a Theory of Man Possible?''), sometimes light (``Bourbon''), his nonfiction is always entertaining and enlightening. Percy is justly famous for his efforts to detect meaning in a world growing more meaningless, and many of his ``signposts'' carry a lot of accessible semiotic significance. Lots of small gems, too: for instance, that Melville was trying to ``out-Hawthorne Hawthorne.'' For all serious literature collections.-- Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.\ \ \ \ \ BooknewsPercy, eminent author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including and , died in 1990, and left a legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Here are assembled essays on language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South. The editor has arranged them to best advantage and provides an introduction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
