Episode #17: The Diagnosis You Didn't Know You Needed: Walker Percy on the Malaise, the Moviegoer, and the Art of Being Actually Alive

About this episode

The episode explores Walker Percy's insights on modern life's malaise and the deeper questions of existence.

WALKER PERCY: EPISODE SUMMARY You can be comfortable, busy, and entertained and still be in despair. That’s the Kierkegaard line Walker Percy puts at the front of The Moviegoer, and it becomes our doorway into a bigger question: what if the real sickness of modern life is that we don’t even notice what’s missing? We walk through Percy’s story, from a Southern upbringing marked by repeated suicide, to medical training and a tuberculosis collapse that pushes him toward reading, philosoph...

People in this episode

Host: Travis Mullen

Topics covered

• malaise
• modern life
• despair
• philosophy
• art of living

Keywords

• Walker Percy
• The Moviegoer
• malaise
• despair
• Kierkegaard
• philosophy
• modern life

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Moviegoer

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