The Moviegoer

Walker Percy's first novel brings to mind J.D. Salinger on many levels.  The novel's protagonist, Jack Bickerson Bolling, is essentially Holden Caulfield if he had grown into a man without losing his feelings of alienation.  While Holden's disaffection is nowadays acceptable among teenagers, seen as a normal part of growing up, it's still largely viewed as pathology or even mental illness in a thirty year old man.  Jack, though, is a charming narrator,  full of wry observations on humanity, and he describes his alienation in terms that strikes pangs of recognition in the reader.  His feelings are ones most of experience in our inner thoughts,  even though we seldom admit them openly.  The novel is hardly about moviegoing at all, except that Jack has an easier time relating to the order he sees in movies than he does to the hollow relationships he sees in real life.  The novel is almost plotless, but yet is about the highest stakes of all:  the search for a meaningful life in a modern world, without succumbing to the easy answers.  

The one person Jack seems to relate to is his step-cousin, Kate, who is as damaged as Jack is, perhaps more so.  Their conversations recall the back-and-forth between Salinger's Franny and Zooey (without the mysticism that Salinger occasionally veers into.)  Likewise,  Jack's family is as full of distinctive characters as Salinger's Glass clan, although all the relationships can be a little hard to parse out.  Jack's father's side is New Orleans old-money establishment gentry,  while his mother's side are Louisiana hicks.  Jack doesn't feel part of either side, as he feels equally disaffected from the past and from the social changes that surround him in the early 60's.  

As you may have guessed by now, this is an existential novel, but one that is still grounded in a deep feeling for humanity.  There are several passages of stunning, devastating beauty that took my breath away.   Although much of the novel is bleak, almost unbearably so,  it has a surprisingly positive ending.  Altough Jack doesn't get much in the way of answers, he does achieve a measure of peace by turning his attentions outside of himself to those around him.