Just read The Moviegoer. Excellent and very existential book, and one I think forum dwellers might especially like. Binx Bolling's narrative voice reminded me of Xahar lol.
Well, I can't think of a more pleasing way to have a book recommended to me than this.
Trigger warning: In a book which is otherwise highly specific geographically, Percy has many of his characters come from an unspecified "Feliciana Parish."
That didn't particularly bother me, but I looked up where Bayou des Allemandes is and it would be impossible for that to be on the way when driving from Bay St. Louis to New Orleans.
I did read the book. The comparison isn't entirely flattering—the narrator comes off as peevish, although I suppose I am too—but I can see the resemblance, and not just because I see four movies a week at the theater. I was struck by how many names the book tosses off that I've mentioned in conversation just in the last week: Rupert Brooke, Dick Powell, Audie Murphy. All it would really need would be some contemporary ballplayers. I won't be thirty for another month and I have religion and I don't like girls, but those are all sort of small differences. Already I can feel my own internal monologue working in the staccato rhythms of the book. I liked it a great deal.
I hope you didn't find the comparison offensive -- I certainly wouldn't characterize you as peevish! I was struck by how Binx and you both have sort of a specific, analytical, and sociogeographically minded way of looking at things.
Anyway, I'm glad you liked it.
