{"product_id":"walker-percys-search-for-community-paperback-1","title":"Walker Percy's Search for Community - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJohn F. Desmond\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the first undertaking of its kind in Percy criticism, John F. Desmond traces--through Walker Percy's six published novels--the writer's central and enduring concerns with community. These concerns, Desmond argues, were grounded in the realism of such Scholastics as Aquinas and Duns Scotus--realism as updated by the semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce, the American philosopher whose work Percy studied for more than forty years. Percy gleaned from Peirce the basic truth that humans are by nature relational beings, a truth reinforced by Percy's Catholic belief in mystical community. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDesmond shows how Percy's theosemiotic outlook shaped each of his novels, from \u003ci\u003eThe Moviegoer\u003c\/i\u003e (1961) to \u003ci\u003eThe Thanatos Syndrome\u003c\/i\u003e (1987), and provided a foundation for his analysis of alienation, his critique of scientism, and his vision of community. Percy's vision of community extended from the flawed social world of modern America and Western society to the mystical community beyond time and place prophesied in the Hebrew-Christian scriptures. This vision grew more explicit as Percy's novelistic career unfolded and was of a piece with the ideas developed in his many essays and in his \"self-help\" parable, \u003ci\u003eLost in the Cosmos\u003c\/i\u003e (1983). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePercy saw himself as a witness to the collapse of scientific humanism in the face of consumerism, self-absorption, and violence. However, Desmond says, Percy also looked forward to a reconciliation of science, religion, and art. In one of his last public lectures, \"The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind,\" Percy called for a \"new anthropology\" based on a Peircean realism that accurately accounted for man's true nature as a wayfarer on a journey with others toward God. This call is echoed in the novels, in which, according to Desmond, Percy explores his vision of community \"through representation of the shattered and deformed state of society and the searching of his protagonists, and through suggesting possibilities for healing their riven state.\"\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eJOHN F. DESMOND is Mary A. Denny Professor of English at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eRisen Sons\u003c\/i\u003e (Georgia) and \u003ci\u003eAt the Crossroads\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 288\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 8.6 x 5.7 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 01, 2010\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53043222544691,"sku":"9780820335827","price":60.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/wJyzoW3-2m9780820335827_7f4b2727-173e-48e3-b786-306b26712fdb.webp?v=1770840808","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/en-ca\/products\/walker-percys-search-for-community-paperback-1","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}