The
Message in a Bottle : How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and
What One Has to Do With the Other by Walker Percy
In The Message in the Bottle, Walker
Percy asks a hard question: Why is it that modern people-so
educated, so prosperous-are so unhappy and ill at ease in the
world? To answer it, he turns to such various yet interconnected
subjects as symbolic reasoning, the origins of mankind, the nature
of tourism, and the incredible Delta Factor, in which he explains
how language is at the heart of human personality. Confronting
philosophical quandaries with a novelist's eye, Percy rewards us
again and again with insights into the way that language possesses
us all.
"These essays have a way of quickening the
spirit and cleansing the sight." -The New Republic
"Walker Percy is that admirable thing-a man who has fallen in
love with an idea, an analytical, academic, philosophical man, in
fact. Yet the novelist in him cannot help but come out."-John
Ciardi, The Saturday Review
"Walker Percy has an intellectual range and
rigor few American novelists can match."-Thomas Leclair, The
New York Times Book Review
"This dense, well-written and extraordinary
book is an excellent introduction to the works of a great 20th
century thinker. In this collection of essays, Percy manages to
confront some difficult philosophical questions in an exciting and
readable context. Percy was first a novelist, and his writing is
seldom inaccessible. He deals in everything from religion to
science, from literary theory to travel. His best writing relates
to theories of language and the human being. Yet like some of the
greatest X-Files episodes, Percy leaves many things unresolved,
liminal, only suggested. Message in a Bottle is designed to
stimulate the reader rather than fill them with useless
information. I finished reading this book with the desire to read
it again, and whenever I see it on the bookshelf I am comforted by
the thought that there are people in the world who think for
themselves, and who have the courage to print what they think."
-- Zoë Alaina Ferraris
About
the Author
The author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction,
including the bestsellers The Moviegoer
and The Thanatos Syndrome.
He was awarded numerous prizes during his lifetime, including the
National Book Award, and is recognized as one of the greatest
American writers of our time. He lived in Covington, Louisiana,
until his death in 1990.
