EP 37: Engaging the Existential in Walker Percy's THE MOVIEGOER

About this episode

The episode discusses Walker Percy's novel The Moviegoer and its existential themes through the character of Binx Bolling.

Send us Fan Mail Walker Percy's 1961 debut novel The Moviegoer---which shocked the literary world when it came out of nowhere to win the National Book Award against some stiff competition---may strike contemporary readers as an elusive novel. The first-person, present-tense voice feels contemporary enough, but the narrator, the New Orleans stockbroker John Bickerson "Binx" Bolling, isn't a rebel without a cause, a Bohemian adventurer, or an angry young man like many heroes of the Eisenhower/K...

People in this episode

Hosts: Scott Yarbrough, Kirk Curnutt

Topics covered

• existentialism
• literature
• Walker Percy
• The Moviegoer
• narrative style
• American literature

Keywords

• Walker Percy
• The Moviegoer
• existentialism
• literary analysis
• American literature
• Binx Bolling
• 1961 novel

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Moviegoer

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