Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy: Review
Jun. 28th, 2021 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiOn a friend's recommendation, I have just finished Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins (1971), a postmodern, late Southern Gothic novel I'd call nominally science fiction in that it is set in the very near future (from the 1970s) and has speculative technology and social changes, but only as a thin veneer for talking about contemporary life. It features the adventures of single, first-person POV character Tom More, a fallen Catholic and psychiatrist trying to navigate his own life and the sociocultural disintegration of the United States. Stylistically, it reminds me a lot of Catch-22, though it is a bit less zany. I am not the target reader, and people who like the postmodern novel or are devotees of the Southern Gothic style may be more satisfied with it than I was. I found it okay, and I'll go through some pros and cons for me.
Pros: As many have noted, the book is prophetic about the breakdown of the US into leftwing and rightwing politicized tribes, though the story doesn't delve into this much. The point may be there's not much difference beneath the surface. The main character is interesting and somewhat sympathetic: he's a good man, well aware that he has given up and given into sin, as he sees it (drinking, sex, and malaise), and his underlying will to do good and his capacity to love grounds what would otherwise be a painfully superficial story. Percy has a good command of his prose style and his descriptions and dialogue both read well. There is some interesting and sometimes trenchant racial commentary. The book is successful at making the United States and its people look ridiculous and in decline, which was clearly a goal, and sometimes this is done with genuine wit and irony.
Cons: I find the book too long. It seems to me the story could have been told in about 200 rather than 400 pages. There is a great deal of repetition of meeting absurd characters and having absurd chats. I may be missing genre cues (or Catholic cues) but the character development evident in the epilogue felt unearned to me. I felt little character arc, just sudden transformation. Maybe it was divine grace?
Genre and historicizing comments: I'd call this style high postmodernism in that it seems invested in depicting a broken and confused, somewhat numbed protagonist in a fragmented and confused (somewhat numbed) world where nothing makes sense and almost everything is perceived and processed through superficial, external cues (ex. cataloguing how Character X dresses, speaks, etc.). This is relieved somewhat by underlying emotional care and Catholic values, but personally, I find it hard to pull emotion or optimism out of this genre, and thus tend to find it both boring and depressing. However, others' mileage varies, and if you like the high postmodern novel, this may be up your alley.
The novel is from the '70s, and, of course, our ideas around social justice have changed. In the main, I think the novel is fairly aware for its time and context, but I hitched on a couple of what I guess I'll call oppressive tropes. One was an implicit reinforcement of the idea that only virgins are worthy of heroine status. The other was a more overt reinforcement of the idea that Black people have failed to thrive because they aren't good at being civilized. Now, this comes via a white character's point of view, and I don't want to mistake author for character, but I don't see the author doing much to question this. As someone with ties to Haiti, I bridled at the old saw that Haiti is an example of Black people not knowing how to govern themselves. (Haiti is an example of hundreds of years of systemic oppression by more powerful states and private entities largely run by white people.)
On the whole, if you're interested in the postmodern novel, the Southern Gothic, or ironic Catholic literature, I'd recommend this book. Otherwise, it's probably okay to give it a pass.
Pros: As many have noted, the book is prophetic about the breakdown of the US into leftwing and rightwing politicized tribes, though the story doesn't delve into this much. The point may be there's not much difference beneath the surface. The main character is interesting and somewhat sympathetic: he's a good man, well aware that he has given up and given into sin, as he sees it (drinking, sex, and malaise), and his underlying will to do good and his capacity to love grounds what would otherwise be a painfully superficial story. Percy has a good command of his prose style and his descriptions and dialogue both read well. There is some interesting and sometimes trenchant racial commentary. The book is successful at making the United States and its people look ridiculous and in decline, which was clearly a goal, and sometimes this is done with genuine wit and irony.
Cons: I find the book too long. It seems to me the story could have been told in about 200 rather than 400 pages. There is a great deal of repetition of meeting absurd characters and having absurd chats. I may be missing genre cues (or Catholic cues) but the character development evident in the epilogue felt unearned to me. I felt little character arc, just sudden transformation. Maybe it was divine grace?
Genre and historicizing comments: I'd call this style high postmodernism in that it seems invested in depicting a broken and confused, somewhat numbed protagonist in a fragmented and confused (somewhat numbed) world where nothing makes sense and almost everything is perceived and processed through superficial, external cues (ex. cataloguing how Character X dresses, speaks, etc.). This is relieved somewhat by underlying emotional care and Catholic values, but personally, I find it hard to pull emotion or optimism out of this genre, and thus tend to find it both boring and depressing. However, others' mileage varies, and if you like the high postmodern novel, this may be up your alley.
The novel is from the '70s, and, of course, our ideas around social justice have changed. In the main, I think the novel is fairly aware for its time and context, but I hitched on a couple of what I guess I'll call oppressive tropes. One was an implicit reinforcement of the idea that only virgins are worthy of heroine status. The other was a more overt reinforcement of the idea that Black people have failed to thrive because they aren't good at being civilized. Now, this comes via a white character's point of view, and I don't want to mistake author for character, but I don't see the author doing much to question this. As someone with ties to Haiti, I bridled at the old saw that Haiti is an example of Black people not knowing how to govern themselves. (Haiti is an example of hundreds of years of systemic oppression by more powerful states and private entities largely run by white people.)
On the whole, if you're interested in the postmodern novel, the Southern Gothic, or ironic Catholic literature, I'd recommend this book. Otherwise, it's probably okay to give it a pass.
