by Walker Percy
Binx Bolling, the
protagonist of The Moviegoer,
is a hard character to get a grip on. He could be viewed as passive and
withdrawn, a man without ambition. On the other hand, he may be heroic,
determined to see life as it is instead of how others want him to.
An investment broker
in 1950s New
Orleans and son of a well-to-do family, Binx spends his free time at
the movies and with girlfriends,
many of them his secretaries. His great-aunt, with
whom he lived during his school days, wants him to set goals as his
30th birthday nears. Binx is more serious than his aunt
realizes. He is on a search unknown to everyone but Aunt Emily's
disturbed stepdaughter Kate, with whom he shares a wounded sensibility.
It is a search for awareness and authenticity, and ordinary daily
minutiae get in its way. "The search," Binx says, "is what
anyone would undertake if he were not sunk into the everydayness of his
own life."
Binx is an obsessive observer; a reader making notes of Binx's thoughts
and his conversations with Kate would have a treasure trove of
reflections to return to. Without
providing a
spiritual prescription — although Percy does
suggest that Binx finds meaning in devoting himself to another needy
human being — this
philosophical novel will prod careful readers to think more
deeply about their own lives.
The
Moviegoer, Percy's first
novel, was published in 1961 and won the National Book Award for
fiction. Percy wrote five more novels combining a Southern
sensibility with existentialist philosophy.
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