"My next novel shall be mainly given to ass-kicking for Jesus' sake."

Mein halbjährliches Ceterum Censeo: Im übrigen meine ich, daß Walker Percy gelesen werden sollte.

Mars Hill Review bietet einen interessanten Einstiegsartikel für den katholischen Percy-Novizen (und für alle anderen ebenso):

"So why is man so sad in this present age? And how can the believing artist offer any hope of redemption? Percy knew that we must, first of all, carefully, honestly, unflinchingly, diagnose the sickness, declaring the bad news to the patient. This is Percy's concept of "ass-kicking for Jesus' sake." We are, in a sense, dead. Scientific humanism will provide interesting information but it will not bring us to life. Nor will a defunct, discredited Christendom. And yet, as Will Barrett discovers, knowing as much at least allows for the possibility of resurrection.

(...)

Will Barrett, the searcher and wrestler, also encounters God's surprising, grace. After Will's experiment, which was to prove conclusively whether God exists or not, is met with a maybe, it is God who woos Will. A young woman named Allison, a recent escapee from the mental hospital, becomes a symbol of God's presence. Will befriends her and the two fall in love. It is the first time for both of them that the word love, the most worn out word in the English language, has ever had any meaning. In the last paragraph of the novel, Will's own experiment having failed, he suddenly becomes aware that Allison may be the sign he was demanding. Will asks, "Is she a gift and therefore a sign of the giver?" Percy would like us to say yes.

But this gift of faith doesn't preclude all doubt. There will be wrestling with doubt, with unidentified despair, and particularly, with God. But there will also be signs, perhaps in the form of a deep longing, of God's grace. Tom More, the main character in Love in the Ruins, speaks for Percy and all those who are onto the search, when he prays:

Dear God, I can see it now, why can't I see it at other times, that it is you I love in the beauty of the world and in all the lovely girls and dear good friends, and it is pilgrims we are, wayfarers on a journey, and not pigs nor angels."