The Moviegoer

Imagine the controversial concept of certain individuals being elevated or praised beyond what they deserve solely in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Now imagine whatever the opposite of that is, where mediocre white guys get disproportionate representation and acclaim for mediocre accomplishments. That’s kind of how I feel about this book.

I mean, I can appreciate some things about it. Maybe it’s trying to embody the meaninglessness of life by describing a lot of meaningless events? I can also relate to Binx’s discomfort with realizing that everything in your life is the way it’s “supposed” to be, and yet none of it seems to matter. And for a book published in 1961, it’s very perceptive about the increasing modern tendency to fill the emptiness in our lives with sex, entertainment, and other forms of distraction. It also has some great lines, and I respect a lot of Kate’s philosophies.

So it’s fine. I just don’t really understand the level of acclaim. I’ve seen it on multiple “best books of the twentieth century” lists, and that feels like a stretch. It’s a very rich-white-American-man version of existentialism, which isn’t necessarily a problem, but I also don’t think it says anything so profound or universal that it obviously belongs in top-tier literary canon. Mostly it just made me think about how many classic books have long been treated as speaking for everyone when they were really speaking for a pretty specific kind of person.

Book author: Walker Percy