Describe Books Toward The Last Gentleman
| Original Title: | The Last Gentleman |
| ISBN: | 0312243081 (ISBN13: 9780312243081) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (1967) |
Walker Percy
Paperback | Pages: 416 pages Rating: 3.87 | 2186 Users | 158 Reviews
Description As Books The Last Gentleman
Will Barrett is a 25-year-old wanderer from the South living in New York City, detached from his roots and with no plans for the future—until the purchase of a telescope sets off a romance and changes his life forever. Publisher: Spring Arbor/Ingram.
Details Containing Books The Last Gentleman
| Title | : | The Last Gentleman |
| Author | : | Walker Percy |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 416 pages |
| Published | : | September 4th 1999 by Picador USA (first published 1966) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Literature. Novels. American. Southern. Classics |
Rating Containing Books The Last Gentleman
Ratings: 3.87 From 2186 Users | 158 ReviewsAssessment Containing Books The Last Gentleman
I am a Percy addict, I admit it, and a vein full of this didn't help. Percy's novels are like non-fiction disguised as fiction, which I think throws a lot of people. He has ideas, and fiction is a vehicle for them. But just like with O'Connor, you can read his books without having a clue about the author's ideas and still love them for the literature they are. Percy's turns of phrase alone make his stuff worth reading. And boy, did this one get me. Starts out like a quaint, good-ish book,I'm going to be EXTREMELY generous and give a book I couldn't take past page 108 (where the sex scene in Central Park begins, or maybe failed sex scene, I give no shits) two stars. Why? Because the "engineer" is admittedly a very haunting character in certain respects. Life going nowhere because of neurosis and the inability to actually choose a path in life instead of wallowing in potential? God, the man is writing about me. Kind of. I wish I had a plantation and a check every month, however
This book, based in small part on Dostoevsky's The Idiot, is, is, is everything. The final pages will make you tremble or cry, or just appreciate how we kiss and kick around despair.
This book had a good begining, and at first reminded me a little of Ellison's Invisible Man in reverse (an amnesiac Southern White trying to come to terms with the South). Soon, however, the book becomes entangled in the happenings of a strange southern family, and all coherence stops. Characters say one things, then turn around and say the opposite; they continualy talk about having adventures, but nothing ever comes of it. The pace of the novel begins to feel a lot like a traffic jam: false
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I liked this book the first time I read it ten years ago, but it stuck me much more profoundly upon this recent re-reading. Percy tackles many issues in this book, all of which ultimately relate to how meaning and thus life itself can be possible in a demystified and inverted modern world. There is a fair amount of farce in The Last Gentleman, but it is farce in service of a serious purpose - the exploration of the absurdity of so much that is taken for granted. The path forward Percy suggests
This is my 2nd try at Walker Percy, the first being The Moviegoer, which won the 1962 National Book Award for Fiction and was on TIME's list of the 100 best English language novels since 1923, and both have been 1 stars for me. As with The Moviegoer, the book is mostly existential nonsense. I can handle no plot if the dialogue is profound enough, but here it's not. I should have stopped with The Moviegoer.
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