I’ll confess I have never (I am pretty sure) finished a Walker Percy novel. A magazine editor commissioned me to “do” him once–i.e. write a 3 or 4 thousand word piece on his oeuvre. I gave it a shot, but Percy wasn’t for me, and the piece never got written. If Percy is as great a writer as Jonah’s reader claims, it is in some way not accessible to me. I find myself saying this about a lot of American novelists, I don’t know why.

Now I come to think of it, the editor in question, launching me on my Percy-athon, tried to enthuse me by saying: “He is absolutely the purest fictional exponent of Kierkegaard!” I should have taken that as a warning.

I tried very hard

To read Soren Kierkegaard

But his “Either/Or”

Just made me snore.