Walker Percy: Books of Revelations

by Gary M. Ciuba

Overview

In Walker Percy: Books of Revelations, Gary M. Ciuba examines how Percy’s apocalyptic vision inspires the structure, themes, and strategies of his fiction. This book explores the unity of the southern novelist’s fiction by focusing on its religious and artistic design—one of the first studies to approach Percy’s work from this perspective.

Ciuba considers Percy’s six published novels—The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, Lancelot, The Second Coming, and The Thanatos Syndrome—and also offers the first extended critical analysis of his unpublished work “The Gramercy Winner.” Although the novels are often seen as increasingly satiric jeremiads about the possible doom of America, Ciuba argues that Percy’s fiction is principally shaped by a demythologized and partially realized form of eschatology. This apocalyptic vision has less to do with the end of the external world than with the demise of the protagonists’ internal worldviews. According to Ciuba, Percy does more than offer direly comic warnings about the end of the world; he shows how the world actually ends and then may begin again in the everyday lives and extraordinary loves of his astonished seers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820337937
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	09/01/2010
Pages:	346
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

GARY M. CIUBA is a professor of English at Kent State University. He is the author ofDesire, Violence, and Divinity in Modern Southern Fiction: Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy which won the C. Hugh Holman Award in 2008 for best work in southern literary studies.

GARY M. CIUBA is a professor of English at Kent State University. He is the author ofDesire, Violence, and Divinity in Modern Southern Fiction: Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy which won the C. Hugh Holman Award in 2008 for best work in southern literary studies.

Editorial Reviews

Ciuba’s emphasis on Percy’s apocalyptics effectively traces the thematic and stylistic ligature that unifies his work, so that, by the end of Walker Percy: Books of Revelations, the reader feels as if he or she has actually glimpsed the figure in the carpet that is woven into the fabric of Percy’s fiction.

Mississippi Quarterly

Ciuba, a recognized authority on the works of Percy, has written a complete and penetrating book that will set the standard for all future Percy scholarship.

Virginia Quarterly Review

Ciuba’s work is valuable in pointing out the many connections between revelation and Revelation, between man-made disaster and Apocalypse, and between the word and the Word.

Christianity and Literature

A masterful and elegantly written analysis. It is a very learned book that combines biblical expertise and astute literary analysis to produce arguments full of rich insights.

Modern Age

“Ciuba’s work is valuable in pointing out the many connections between revelation and Revelation, between man-made disaster and Apocalypse, and between the word and the Word.”—Christianity and Literature

“Ciuba’s emphasis on Percy’s apocalyptics effectively traces the thematic and stylistic ligature that unifies his work, so that, by the end of Walker Percy: Books of Revelations, the reader feels as if he or she has actually glimpsed the figure in the carpet that is woven into the fabric of Percy’s fiction.”—Mississippi Quarterly

“Ciuba, a recognized authority on the works of Percy, has written a complete and penetrating book that will set the standard for all future Percy scholarship.” —Virginia Quarterly Review

“A masterful and elegantly written analysis. It is a very learned book that combines biblical expertise and astute literary analysis to produce arguments full of rich insights.”—Modern Age

From the Publisher

Ciuba's theme is Percy's religious and artistic ``apocalyptic vision'': a fictional world of isolated searchers who detect the end of their accustomed mechanical and abstract worlds, often try to escape this end, but, in confronting their catastrophe, find an ambiguous, open-ended renewal. ``The Apocalypse of John is the story of all Percy's stories,'' Ciuba contends. An opening essay expounding this thesis is followed by chapters that trace the revelation-ruin-renewal pattern, emphasizing the religious over the literary, in individual works (the unpublished early novel ``The Grammercy Winner,'' plus The Moviegoer , The Last Gentleman , Love in the Ruins , Lancelot , The Second Coming , The Thanatos Syndrome ). The method is extended plot summary, with little extended quotation, highlighting the basic pattern. Repetitious and dreary, this is an arid critical performance that scarcely moves beyond its initial essay.-- Richard Kuczkowski, Dominican Coll., Blauvelt, N.Y.

Library Journal

Ciuba considers Percy's six published novels and his unpublished work inspires the structures, themes, and strategies of his fiction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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