Time Magazine Top 100 Novels

Book 54: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (1961)

This is a series of reflections reading through Time Magazine’s top 100 novels as selected by Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo published since 1923 (when Time magazine was founded). For me this is an attempt to broaden my exposure to authors I may not encounter otherwise, especially as a person who was not a liberal arts major in college. Time’s list is alphabetical, so I decided to read through in a random order, and I plan to write a short reflection on each novel.

The Moviegoer is a book where the prose is lyrical set in the late 1950s New Orleans region. Binx Bolling (full name John Bickerson Bolling) is a stock trader who lives in a middle-class suburb called Gentilly, but who frequently goes into New Orleans to see his aunt (Emily Cutrer, who raised him) and his cousin Kate Cutrer. Binx is torn between his existential quest to avoid everydayness and his enjoyment of movies and the women he hires as his secretaries. He holds one moment ba

ck in the war after he had been shot as a moment when life had meaning but he also seems to revel in his own listless approach to life. His cousin Kate avoids committing herself to life as much as Binx and seems only held to life by the possibility of suicide. Between his aunt, who is the center of gravity in the family, Kate with her non-commitance to life, and Binx caught in his own unmoving existentialism the characters and the story conspire to remain stuck.

This was a book where I could see how the language could attract the attention of Lev Grossman and Richa

rd Lacayo, and perhaps the appeal of the existential crisis of people who in their own way rebelled against the conformity of the 1950s. As a reader I found the book incredibly frustrating. It was an example of spending pages describing something in a refined stream of consciousness which allowed the story and characters to remain stuck. I understand that Binx and the rest of the family are antiheroes in their own way, and I have also lived in Louisiana, although this is not unique to Louisiana or the south, and have met people who used similar tactics to remain stuck in their malaise. These experiences may have enhanced my frustration with the characters in the story. Others may love this short book, but it was not for me.