The Moviegoer (was Rachel's hand jive)

[Mark Kohut]

>From an Exhibition catalog. #20 shows Percy's agent was not Pynchon's...see 
#23..
 
17. Walker Percy. Typescript draft of a short story titled "Confessions of a 
Moviegoer (From the Diary of the Last Romantic)," identified by Percy as a 
"short early version" of his subsequent novel. 

18. Walker Percy. Typescript draft of the novel, titled "Confessions of a 
Moviegoer," dating from the late 1950s. Characterized as the "original 
manuscript" by the author and with his extensive manuscript corrections. 

19. Typed letters, signed, from Stanley Kaufmann to Walker Percy, addressed from 
New York and dated February 5 and September 1, 1960. Kaufmann was Percy's editor 
and chief supporter at the Alfred Knopf publishing firm. The first letter 
reveals some of the difficulties Percy encountered in getting The Moviegoer 
published; the second details Kaufmann's pleasure in the final acceptance of the 
novel by the publisher. 

20. Telegram from Elizabeth Otis to Walker Percy, New York, August 31, 1960. 
Percy's literary agent in New York announces the final acceptance of The 
Moviegoer for publication by Knopf. 

21. Walker Percy.The Moviegoer. New York: Knopf, 1961. First edition. Hobson 
A.1.1. 

22. Walker Percy. The Moviegoer. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1963. Copy from 
the author's library with his holograph annotations. Hobson A.1.1.b. 

23. Walker Percy.The Moviegoer. New York: Avon, 1982. Ninth printing. See Hobson 
A.1.1.e. From Walker Percy's library. This copy is inscribed by the author to 
his young grandson, Robert, offering to give the boy five dollars if he would 
read the book through to its conclusion and tell Percy the meaning of the 
ending. 

24. Walker Percy.The Moviegoer. A sampling of the numerous translations of the 
book, beginning with the Danish in 1964, forwarded to Percy by their publishers. 

Writing



----- Original Message ----
From: "Carvill, John" <john.carvill at sap.com>
To: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
Cc: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, July 13, 2010 3:48:52 AM
Subject: RE: The Moviegoer (was Rachel's hand jive)

<< Thanks for bringing this up.  I haven't read The Moviegoer yet, but
now I'll put it at the top of my list. >>

I do very strongly recommend it, the writing is wonderful, the language 
incredibly rich and idiosyncratic. Also, I'm sure you will enjoy the sense of 
place.

<< BTW, Percy was the one John Kennedy Toole's mother showed the
manuscript for The Confedracy of Dunces, and he made sure it got
published. >>

Oh yes, and I loved 'Dunces' too. A very different book, though. 

As well as 'The Moviegoer', and the already mentioned, quite Pynchon-relevant 
'The Day of the Locust', I also read Roth's 'Patrimony' - and wondered yet again 
just what more an American author has to do to wake those Nobel committee pricks 
up - and Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'. I'm gonna go back and trawl the archives 
re. 'The Road' since I know it was covered here, but again, what a great book, 
and what deceptively rich language. Here's one review which I thought did a good 
job of summing up the appeal of 'The Road':

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/nov/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview4

"Set piece after set piece, you will read on, absolutely convinced, thrilled, 
mesmerised with disgust and the fascinating novelty of it all: breathtakingly 
lucky escapes; a complete train, abandoned and alone on an embankment; a sudden 
liberating, joyous discovery or a cellar of incarcerated amputees being slowly 
eaten. And everywhere the mummified dead, "shrivelled and drawn like latterday 
bogfolk, their faces of boiled sheeting, the yellowed palings of their teeth".

Cheers
J