Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Moviegoer: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Moviegoer: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Moviegoer: A Novel
    Ebook260 pages4 hours

    The Moviegoer: A Novel

    By Walker Percy

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In this National Book Award–winning novel from a “brilliantly breathtaking writer,” a young Southerner searches for meaning in the midst of Mardi Gras (The New York Times Book Review).

    On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is a lost soul. A stockbroker and member of an established New Orleans family, Binx’s one escape is the movie theater that transports him from the falseness of his life. With Mardi Gras in full swing, Binx, along with his cousin Kate, sets out to find his true purpose amid the excesses of the carnival that surrounds him. Buoyant yet powerful, The Moviegoer is a poignant indictment of modern values, and an unforgettable story of a week that will change two lives forever.
    This ebook features an illustrated biography of Walker Percy including rare photos from the author’s estate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMar 29, 2011
    ISBN9781453216255
    Unavailable
    The Moviegoer: A Novel
    Author

    Walker Percy

    Walker Percy (1916–1990) was one of the most prominent American writers of the twentieth century. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he was the oldest of three brothers in an established Southern family that contained both a Civil War hero and a U.S. senator. Acclaimed for his poetic style and moving depictions of the alienation of modern American culture, Percy was the bestselling author of six fiction titles—including the classic novel The Moviegoer (1961), winner of the National Book Award—and fifteen works of nonfiction. In 2005, Time magazinenamed The Moviegoer one of the best English-language books published since 1923.

    Read more from Walker Percy

    Related to The Moviegoer

    Related ebooks

    Coming of Age Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      TS Eliot’s Women: The Unsung Female Voices Of The Waste Land

      Oct 30, 2022

      A red lever-arch folder, well-loved and battered, sits near me in my office. Throughout my adult life, it has teetered on shelves in various homes, my university dissertation about the women in TS Eliot’s best-known poem, The Waste Land, lying inside

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Conversation

      Jun 20, 2017

      The Conversation
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Pure Life of the Mind: The Millions Interview with Karen Olsson

      Aug 1, 2019

      Olsson's new biography of the brilliant French siblings Simone and André Weil is a portrait-in-pieces of what it means to be a thinker and writer. The post A Pure Life of the Mind: The Millions Interview with Karen Olsson appeared first on The Millio

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Last Victorian Sage

      Jan 2, 2020

      The Last Victorian Sage
      6 min read

    • Article

      Enigma From the East

      Dec 3, 2018

      Enigma From the East
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Modest Proposal

      Jul 16, 2018

      A Modest Proposal
      7 min read

    • Article

      What The Thunder Said

      Sep 14, 2022

      ON Margate Sands./I can connect/ Nothing with nothing.’ Thomas Stearns (T. S.) Eliot crafted these short lines that form a part of his fractured epic The Waste Land in October 1921, as he sat in the inauspicious Nayland Rock Shelter (granted Grade II

      4 min read

    • Article

      Real Books, Made Of Paper

      Mar 1, 2019

      Real Books, Made Of Paper
      6 min read

    • Article

      RIP The Alpha Male

      Feb 9, 2022

      Whatever happened to the alpha male? He still exists – but has had to go into hiding. When the Duke of Edinburgh died, I considered his achievements. He carried out 22,219 solo royal engagements, and 637 overseas tours. He was a race-winning yachtsma

      3 min read

    • Article

      American Nostalgia On A Bun

      Apr 24, 2018

      American Nostalgia On A Bun
      6 min read

    • Article

      Rod Dreher Comes Home

      Apr 28, 2022

      THE AMERICAN WRITER ROD DREHER is an unfamiliar figure in Britain, where his diagnoses of the problems ‘“liquid modernity” presents for moral living are incomprehensibly alien to most Tories. Conservative electoral success, allied to the natural Blai

      9 min read

    Reviews for The Moviegoer

    3.5/5

    1,004 ratings48 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A good balance of plot, philosophizing, and a passive interior wanderlust ("the search" of the "seeker") . The characters seem plucked from Faulkner's south and believable in context. The existentialism is "lightweight" in that it arises simply from Binx not making any progress from his readymade worldview at the outset.
    • 5/5
      A challenging book but so worth it. Some of the most beautiful prose I've read.
    • 3/5
      Initially, one might perceive the novel's protagonist, Binx Bolling, as shallow primarily motivated to make money, to watch movies (which he frequently compares to reality), and to date each newly hired secretary. However, as accompany him on his and his relative, Kate Cutrer, on their existential journey throughout a post-WWII New Orleans, you realize that he has more psychological depth as the two explore alienation, faith, and life's meaning. The author's interest in existential philosophy is evident in this novel's plot. If you are enjoy the contemporary author, Nicholson Baker, especially his short stream-of-consciousness The Mezzanine, you will enjoy his predecessor's The Moviegoer.
    • 2/5
      Nice prose, but I could neither empathize nor sympathize with any of the characters.
    • 4/5
      I've wanted to read THE MOVIEGOER for many years, and now I finally have. My take on it may be slightly different than some. I see it as a kind of anti-war book. Its protagonist, Binx Bolling, is several years removed from his service in the Korean war, but he seems to be suffering from a kind of PTSD, which he refers to as the "malaise," or the "everydayness." Whatever he calls it, it has left him with a feeling of hopelessness, of "why bother." A moderately successful stockbroker with his uncle's New Orleans firm, Binx has no particular ambitions beyond his present circumstances. He lives his bachelor life in a bare, unadorned apartment. He engages in meaningless serial dalliances with his secretaries. He has no close friends. The last time he can remember life being important was when he "lay bleeding in a ditch" in Korea. He takes refuge in movies.Walker Percy's novel also gives us a glimpse into New Orleans life in the late fifties. He shows us the inbred families of the crescent city, their attitudes toward the black servants they employ, as well as the strange, stratified carnival atmosphere of Mardi Gras. Indeed, everyone seems to expect Binx to marry his cousin, Kate, who is a story in herself, with her wildly fluctuating bipolar behavior. Binx does feel a surprisingly tender affinity toward his colorful cousin, and also shows immense tolerance and even affection for his several half-siblings, especially one who is crippled and sickly. In these particular relationships, he comes alive as a real and sympathetic character, in sharp contrast to his shallow affairs with his Marcia, Linda and Sharon secretaries. The book starts off rather slowly, I thought, but the second half grabbed me and kept me turning pages - the parts about Kate and her family, as well as his crippled half-brother, Lonnie. I understand now why THE MOVIEGOER, first published in 1962, has long been considered a minor classic of Southern Literature. Percy is a unique sort of writer, and a damn good one. Binx Bolling is a character I will not soon forget. Very highly recommended.- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
    • 3/5
      So, the Moviegoer won the National Book Award. It must be a great book. Unfortunately, I didn't get it. The protagonist, Binx, is on a search. It appears to be a search for the meaning of life, but his activities - going to movies, bedding women, making money, and hanging out with his relatives - don't seem to be getting him there. Then, nothing much happens. I kept waiting for it, but it never came. I suppose it is a message about the boredom for the post-war middle class. I don't know, exactly, except that it bored me to tears.The writing is beautiful. I looked up a word every few pages. Quite edifying! I guess I've been out of college lit classes to long. I want a story in which something happens. The Moviegoer is not that story.
    • 4/5
      This novel was more thought-provoking than I had expected so my rating may change after I have had time to mull it over. I loved the New Orleans setting and Percy has a wonderful way with words. The malaise of Binx and Kate was both familiar and strange -- I have had bouts of clinical depression and so could understand some of what Kate was feeling but the existentialism was a bit hard to relate to.
    • 4/5
      Percy has been an Interesting discovery and the characters he created are unique

    • 3/5
      Binx Bolling ist ein Suchender. Einer, den sein situiertes Leben in New Orleans in den 1950er Jahren nicht ausreicht. Der Roman spielt in der Zeit von Mardi Gras, als junger Wertpapierhändler fühlt er sich eingebettet in die Welt einer traditionellen weißen Südstaatenfamilie nicht wohl. Die Ausgelassenheit des Faschings verstärkt dieses Gefühl, wobei Binx sich nicht der Freude und dem Rummel zugeneigt fühlt, sondern stets und überall auf die Malaise stößt, auf jenes Gefühl der Traurigkeit, das sich bei ihm regelmäßig einstellt, vor allem, nachdem sich etwas Positives ereignet hat.Der Roman erschien 1961 und wurde im Jahr darauf mit dem National Bok Award ausgezeichnet. Vor dem Hintergrund der damaligen Zeit erscheint dies auch gerechtfertigt, immerhin beschäftigt sich Percy mit damals aktuellen Themen wie Fortschritt, Wissenschaft oder auch Rassendiskriminierung (wenngelich letzteres eher zu vernachläsigen ist). Ob das Buch allerdings zu den 100 must-reads der englischsprachigen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts zählt, wie das Time-Magazin behauptet, ist zu bezweifeln. Zu sehr ist der Roman in seiner Zeit verhaftet (die Anspielungen auf die Kinofilme z.B. sind heute kaum noch nachvollziehbar), zu wenig perspektivisch sind die Charaktere und die Handlung ausgelegt. Mag sein, dass der Protagonist einigen (so auch dem Übersetzer Peter Handke) ein Wahlverwandter ist - aber ein großer Roman braucht eindeutig mehr als einen eigenwilligen Charkter und einen mittelmäßigen Erzählstil.
    • 4/5
      Binx Bolling is a lost soul, but at least he knows he’s lost. As the ostensible hero of Walker Percy’s beautifully rendered novel The Moviegoer, an almost 30-year old Binx wanders around New Orleans as part of his Search, which is “…what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life”. He spends his days going through the motions as a stockbroker in his Uncle Jules’ business while escaping at night into the artificial world of countless movie theaters and the pursuit of a variety of women. Of course, all of this is a great disappointment to his Aunt Emily, the matriarch of the family, who has far greater plans for his life. However, when Emily asks Binx to help counsel his cousin Kate, who is in even a more fragile mental state than he is, all of their lives are placed on a very different path.Set during Mardi Gras week in 1960, The Moviegoer perfectly captures the angst, disillusionment, and uncertainty of an era in which an entire generation was trying to move on from the war while facing what the future held in store. While that future seemed so promising to so many—dazzling even—the reality of day-to-day life was often depressingly mundane. In that respect, this novel shares a common theme with Richard Yates’ equally remarkable Revolutionary Road, which Percy’s work actually beat out for the National Book Award. However, this is also a very Southern tale, infused as it is with the daily rhythms, speech patterns, and local flavor of the time and the place. Above all else, it is a deceptively philosophical novel and a compelling character study that has stood the test of time.I really enjoyed this book, which I had known by reputation for years before I finally got around to reading it. To be sure, it is not really a plot-driven story, which is something that seems to be a concern for a lot of other reviewers. From my perspective, though, I found Binx Bolling to be one the great characters in recent literature and an archetype for so many disaffected modern male protagonists (e.g., Frank Bascombe in Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter and Independence Day) who have followed. Percy’s prose is sharp and insightful, as well as occasionally funny and charming. This novel, which is so full of compelling ideas and observations, is one that I will look forward to reading again in the future.
    • 5/5
      I've loved it so much for so long. No objectivity. Read it and weep.
    • 4/5
      What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple; at least for a fellow like me. So simple that it is often overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. Percy describes the everyday with sublime mastery.

    • 4/5
      Until my recent reading of The Moviegoer, I was a virgin to the Walker Percy experience. I came to this book because of years of glorious reviews and comments, his reputation of being a writer with a serious philosophical bent, and his 1962 National Book Award. I knew of Percy’s Southern origins, his agnostic upbringing, and about having lost his father to suicide when Walker was barely a teenager. Later I learned that just two years later, he was orphaned by his mother’s fatal car accident, one that Walker always believed was a suicide as well. Percy was a literary groundbreaker, a major influence on his fellow Southern writers with his estranged characters that were detached from much in their lives. With his early life, that disconnect isn’t hard to source. Now that I’ve read the book, I recognize the talent, found the characters interesting, was fascinated by their motivations that circled and sometimes slammed into each other, or simply headed away in different directions. All that said, I found myself detached from much of the book—possibly, it was the right book, just at the wrong time. Because of my age and life situation, I’m hip to the fact that books such as this won’t be able to wait on a shelf in my den, waiting for just the right time to read again—I’ve lost that life possibility. I would put on my “So Many Books, Too Little Time” T-shirt, if I only had one. [My trivia for this exact moment, that quote is surprisingly attributed to Frank Zappa.] Anyway, a widely acclaimed literary classic it is, but I’m moving on to my next book.
    • 2/5
      This book probably felt deep and insightful in its day, but it did not connect with me. I know Walker Percy is hailed as one of the great Catholic writers, but I feel like the questions he addresses were better handled by Flannery O'Connor. Also, the ennui of successful white men leaves me cold in the year of Our Lord 2020. I'm not sorry to have read this, but I did not find it timeless.
    • 3/5
      One GR friend suggests kids should read this instead of Salinger. Another suggests that the problem with this book is that it is Salinger for adults. These things are both true, though Percy is much smarter and more interesting than Salinger.
    • 2/5
      What's the big stink? Holden Caulfield grows up and is still dissatisfied with the world and the people in it. Maybe I'll come back to this when I'm older, but at this point in my life it's just not for me.
    • 3/5
      Great book although at times too philosophical. (Review TO Come)
    • 5/5
      This book came out of nowhere to with the National Book Award in 1960. Percy was a doctor disqualified from medical practice because of tuberculosis. He had published a few philosophical musings in minor journals. He was the definition of obscure. His book wasn’t even nominated for the award. Nonetheless, a committee-member suggested The Moviegoer (a suggested read by a friend), and the rest is history. When Percy died in 1990, he was mentioned among America’s writing greats.

      What makes this book great? It’s a coming-of-age story in which Binx Boling, a stock broker in New Orleans, grows up. He begins the book alienated from a responsible lifestyle. He has casual sex and attempts to live a life of ease. He even romanticizes his female secretary – a vivid reminder that this book was published in 1960. Such an arrangement reminds the reader of a disoriented modern state in which success and failure can be intimately related to each other. Indeed, in Percy’s depiction, they often seem two sides of the same coin.

      Percy’s Roman Catholicism displays a view of salvation. Percy’s view differs from the predominantly Protestant culture of the American South where salvation is often equated with mere mental consent (assent?) to a set of beliefs. Instead, salvation for Bolling looks like assuming a life of responsibility. While the presentation of Bolling’s fiancee represents more of a stereotype of 1950s American culture, this responsibility indicates a coming of age for the protagonist.

      Overall, this story carries itself nicely. It begins in a disjointed manner and is hard to follow. It is much like Bolling’s life at that point. Yet it comes together beautifully as the story (and Bolling himself) evolves into someone new. No wonder critics rank it among the English Language’s top 100 novels of the twentieth century. It’s refreshing to read something that is essentially a spiritual quest (even a modern pilgrimage) that is consistent with the Christian tradition but is not centered around religious beliefs. Again, Percy’s view of salvation is something concrete and embodied. It is never preachy as Bolling’s immature views of God are even criticized.

      Those familiar with this type of American Gothic crossed with a redemption story will be reminded of the short stories of Flannery O’Connor (who shares Percy’s Catholicism). Faulkner’s Gothic style contains all of the disjointedness but none of Percy’s (and O’Connor’s) concretized and realistic redemption. As such, this readable work deserves its place in the English language’s literary canon.

    • 5/5
      Great in so many ways: American, post-war 20th century, Southern, Catholic, philosophical.
    • 3/5
      For anyone who has ever felt truly lost in life, stranded in the ambiguity of what to do with their lives and find other ways to pass the time and find some sort of semblance of happiness, this novel is first you.

      I can identify with Binx, the protagonist, because of his eternal struggle for his search for seemingly something more yet being content in his little nook of the world he's carved out. Just like Kerorac's On the Road, The Moviegoer made me nostalgic for a time I was never part of I missed it all the same.
    • 2/5
      Generally, the writing was sufficient, but the story lagged and almost squandered itself in its own conception. I did not feel that it was strong enough to hold my interest, and it lagged considerably throughout my reading.

      Not recommended.
    • 3/5
      St. Barts 2019 #7 - I know this won the National Book Award, but it just did not do it for me......in the beginning, i thought it would....but was not to be so. Far too many characters thrown at me in disjointed ways....and from complicated relationships of deaths and remarriages and half-brothers, etc. And i am sad to say early on, I just did not care enough to go back and try to fetter out my confusion, which probably was a mistake. I thought it would settle out for me with further reading....but alas, no. So, the premise, i guess, was the search by our main character, Jack Bolling (Binx) for his purpose for existence.....since he seemed to have none.....Malaise was his nemesis, and it was everywhere....but movies would set that aside, albeit briefly. The early movie references were interesting and i thought would give it promise, but the further the book went, the less there were. Certainly his disjointed, rather spread out family of very varied heritage contributed to his sense of empty wandering, yet he has to be, by his own definition, one of the most selfish, and personally vacant souls i have encountered in a while.....and perfectly content to be such on the one hand, but yearning for something else on the other. It just did not click together for me. Likely a little too much thinking needed for my reading taste, which is purely for entertainment. Did he find whatever he was in search of???? I wish i could tell you, but sadly, i really don't know.....
    • 3/5
      I wasn't hating it, but I have to admit I'm not going to finish it.

      (June 29)
      Okay, I picked it up again on the strength of the bit about "This I Believe". We'll see how it goes.

      (June 30)
      I actually finished it! I liked it more than I thought I would, especially the part about "rotations". I was totally going to even go to book club and discuss it, but there was a whole situation (two, actually) and that just did not happen. Maybe next time.
    • 3/5
      The Moviegoer is a coming-of-age story of a twenty-nine year old, 'Binx' Bolling, who works in a suburb of New Orleans at a brokerage firm. Binx doesn't know himself very well. Although he claims to enjoy the mediocrity of his life at the branch office in Gentilly, he at the same time fears the everyday-ness of life. His aunt believes him to have an analytical mind, whereas he believes he has never analyzed anything, meanwhile he continually analyzes himself and everyone else in this first-person narrative. The most charming and at the same time disturbing aspect of this work is Binx's relationships to other women, because he proves to be a moody lover, and is unaware of what he wants. He admires his secretary's (Sharon) beauty, but while they embrace on the beach, he experiences the realization that he does not "love her so wildly as I loved her last night."This might be a good book for teenagers, because of Binx's struggles with identity and the everyday aspects of life that he associates with malaise, despair, and deadness, but much of the book seems rather pointless.
    • 4/5
      This was the first Walter Percy book I've read and I'm hooked. His ability to capture details that make you see his scenes and characters vividly is unlike anyone else I can think of. I'm hooked and looking for more by him.
    • 5/5
      Wow, what a densely woven, moody, beautiful little book. I could really just go back and start at the beginning and read it again, and I might just do that a little later on.Five stars because of one just amazing passage that takes place at a drive-in movie—one of those things you read that stays with you forever.
    • 4/5
      The book opens with a quote from Kierkegaard: “. . .the specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair.” The preface warns us that when movie stars appear within the pages of the book, “it is not the person of the actor which is meant but the character he projects upon the screen.”I’ve read two great New Orleans novels in my life: John Kennedy Tooles' "A Confederacy of Dunces" and Robert Hicks’ "A Separate Country" – two fabulous but couldn’t-be-more-different novels. Unfortunately, this one misses being the third.In Walker's novel, Binx, a 29-year-old Korean War veteran, New Orleans native, and stock broker is alienated, feels disconnected, yearns in an amorphous way to live a life less ordinary. To this end he devises games that he feels lifts him out of significance. Searches, repetitions, and loops are his mind games for forcing himself to notice things, to create an imaginary matrix in which he can rise above the unnoticed drones, where he, in his mind, can count.Kate is his female counterpart, who flirts with suicide to stimulate her interest in living. Two more self-absorbed characters would be hard to find. Yet, Percy writes about them in such as way that we become interested. Perhaps it is the final scene in the epilogue when Binx’s half brother dies that provides the excuse to find them sympathetic. It’s the only time we learn that either of them is capable of caring for someone other than themselves and to a lesser extent, each other.That said, Walker is a damn good writer of existential fiction. The novel is somewhat dated and out of fashion but glad I read it for the marvelous voice of the author.
    • 2/5
      This is one of those in which not much happens. The main character is a man works and goes to the movies and wanders around trying to fight off malaise and everydayness. He is "Seeking" he says, but it's never really clear what he's looking for (perhaps the opposite of everydayness?) or how he plans to find it. His main fear is turning into "a Nobody from Nowhere".Reading the first few pages, I enjoyed the writing style, but as the story went on, I quickly found myself less and less interested. I even grew to dislike the main character as he continued to view the world from a distance. There's a subtle racism throughout, which can be explained, if not excused by the face that it's story centered around a Southern white man in the '50s, and incorporated with that is a general sense of people not as people, but the ideas of people, as symbols and metaphors for existence. The narrator proposes selfishness as the best course of action and follows through. One might think he is redeemed by his relationship with Kate, a depressed cousin by marriage prone to flights of fancy and despair, to whom he speaks to at the behest of his Aunt. He never really tries to help her, just follows her along on the rolling waves of her thought process. And though, their relationship "grows", I am not convinced that he cares for her, because his affections always seem to be based on his ideas.It's one of those stories that I feel I probably should like, because it's well written and serious and supposed to be "meaningful" and stuff, but the truth is all I can muster is a meh in response. I could try to think about more, to see if I'm missing something, to try to determine what I feel about it in any real sense, but the problem is, I just don't care.
    • 4/5
      John Bickerson (Binx) Bolling is a stockbroker with a talent for making money. He finds meaning in the movies he goes to with his current secretary. He's also on a nebulous search for something he can't define. He lives in solitary and wonder in a New Orleans suburb in the post-WWII years and is an excellent observer of the minutiae of "everydayness."Binx is one quirky 29-year-old who is drifting through life. The movies he is addicted to provide "certification" for him as a proof of existence when he views a scene from his small life on the big screen. Strangely, he also believes he is "Jewish by instinct" because of being in exile from the concerns of ordinary people. The "cold and fishy eye" of malaise follows him about as he tries to make sense of his life.I thoroughly enjoyed my time in New Orleans with Mardi Gras as a backdrop to this depiction of an unremarkable yet unforgettable character. There is much depth in the penetrating prose of Walker Percy. This book is a keeper that I will be reading again in order to glean its lessons about learning to overcome despair and how to live our lives as best we can.
    • 5/5
      When The Moviegoer was first published in 1961, it won the National Book Award and established Walker Percy as one of the leading novelists of the South. In his portrait of a boyish New Orleans stockbroker wavering between ennui and the longing for redemption, Percy managed to create an American existentialist saga. On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is adrift. He occupies himself dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the "treasurable moments" absent from this real life. Every night at dusk, when the Gulf breeze stirs the warm, heavy air over New Orleans, a 29-year-old wanderer named Binx Bolling emerges from his apartment, carrying in his hand the movie page of his newspaper, his telephone book and a map of the city. With these documents, Binx proceeds to chart his course to that particular neighborhood cinema in which he will spend his evening. But one fateful Mardi gras, Binx embarks on a quest — a search for authenticity that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin, Kate, and sends him reeling through the gaudy chaos of the French Quarter. Eventually through this "search" Binx rediscovers himself by having to face the far more desperate problems of Kate who as she sinks deeper within herself, finds only Binx can talk to her. And in the end, Binx decides to change by making decisions, taking risks, and opening himself to suffering--in other words, by accepting reality. Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, The Moviegoer is a genuine American classic.