Walker Percy & ‘The Moviegoer’: We Need More Than Movies

Walker Percy: The Moviegoer & Other Novels, 1961–1971, edited by Paul Elie (Library of America, 983 pp., $45)

In Walker Percy’s 1961 debut novel, The Moviegoer, John Bickerson “Binx” Bolling is a cinephile, a cinéaste, a fan of the flickers, and, above all, a man who reckons that the silver screen is preferable to this vale of tears. Binx has the outward characteristics of a well-rounded, well-functioning citizen — he served in the Korean War, now resides in the pleasant environs of Gentilly, a suburban neighborhood of New Orleans, and makes an honorable living as a stock and bond broker — but, inwardly, his life is defined by his liberal partaking in the disposable and expendable, including going to the movies.

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Peter Tonguette

Peter Tonguette is the Life & Arts editor of the Washington Examiner magazine and is writing a biography of Peter Bogdanovich.

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Walker Percy: The Moviegoer & Other Novels, 1961–1971, edited by Paul Elie (Library of America, 983 pp., $45)

In Walker Percy’s 1961 debut novel, The Moviegoer, John Bickerson “Binx” Bolling is a cinephile, a cinéaste, a fan of the flickers, and, above all, a man who reckons that the silver screen is preferable to this vale of tears. Binx has the outward characteristics of a well-rounded, well-functioning citizen — he served in the Korean War, now resides in the pleasant environs of Gentilly, a suburban neighborhood of New Orleans, and makes an honorable living as a stock and bond broker — but, inwardly, his life is defined by his liberal partaking in the disposable and expendable, including going to the movies.