Reaction to The Moviegoer
(or, Somebody Please Shoot Me)
It is Sunday at ten p.m. and I have just finished reading The Moviegoer. It had the remarkably unique quality of being one of the most well-crafted, well-conceived and affecting novels I have ever read while at the same time being almost impossible to sit down to. A rare dichotomy of brilliant writing and joyless reading. The word buzz-kill comes to mind. It felt like Percy, through his character Binx, beat me over the head for two-hundred forty pages with cynicism and ennui.
And poor Binx, oh miserable man that he is! In the first chapter he describes his "search" without really saying what it is that he is looking for. He hints at God or religion or some central philosophy worth living for. He contends that this is what his story is all about and it is purportedly the central unifying theme. However, I don't really recognize it as a search. A search would require an open-minded and objective look at the world around him. It would demand that he ask objective questions and seek objective answers. This he does not do. As Binx goes through the motions of life he sees everything through a lens of overtly hostile cynicism. He projects this trait upon everyone and every event in his life. His search is disingenuous at best. It seems more of a code-word he uses to "certify" himself and imbue some meaning on his life, in much the same way the moviegoer does who sees his hometown on the big screen. It helps to make him a "someone" rather than just an "anyone." He chooses to believe he is searching although he has already settled on the answer. Binx's problem is combating "everydayness," an endeavor that could not be helped even if he found some sort of faith. He says, "If God himself had appeared to me, it would have changed nothing. In fact, I have only to hear the word God and a curtain comes down in my head." (145)
In the end, it is difficult to say whether or not Binx finds what he is looking for. As for faith or religion, I doubt it. Acceptance of his life as meaningless, perhaps. I think he takes a sort of pride in his misery. Referring to the seats in the movie theater he says there exists a "sense of wonder about the enduring, about all the nights... when the seats endured alone in the empty theater. The enduring is something which must be accounted for. One cannot simply shrug it off." (80) Binx might have made some cursory acceptance of religion, the "heroic unreligiousness" of his family in church (160), but it has little do with combating everydayness. He has instead let go of the search and contented himself to face the everyday like a good stoic.
The Moviegoer left me somewhat dissatisfied in the end. The vagueness of the epilogue left me wanting. Probably this is what Percy was after, to leave the reader with a sense of dissatisfied acceptance. Dare I say, it is a must-read, but you might be prepared with a length of rope just in case.
1 comment:
I like your post, not only because your ideas flowed with some of my major points, but you briefly touched on some issues that I barely thought about, and actually didn't consider. For example, you connected Binx's search in with faith and religion more-so that I did. Now that I think about it, he actually DID talk about religion a lot: his fascination with the Jewish community and his mother's family being Catholic. Both of these religions intrigued him, even though I think he settled for Catholicism in the end. But like religion, I think its important to note that Binx loved to surround himself with ideas and nudges, if you will, in the right direction, for he was always seemed unsure. Also, I like that you weren't exactly sure about the ending, which "YES" I do think Percy meant to do that! Good job.
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