The Moviegoer (1961) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Quotes edit see section history

• “To become aware of the possibility of a search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.

  Highlighted by 66 Kindle customers

• To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

  Highlighted by 60 Kindle customers

• Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal.

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• Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.

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• This is another thing about the world which is upside-down: all the friendly and likable people seem dead to me; only the haters seem alive.

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• What is a repetition? A repetition is the re-enactment of past experience toward the end of isolating the time segment which has lapsed in order that it, the lapsed time, can be savored of itself and without the usual adulteration of events that clog time like peanuts in brittle.

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• What is the malaise? you ask. The malaise is the pain of loss. The world is lost to you, the world and the people in it, and there remains only you and the world and you no more able to be in the world than Banquo’s ghost.

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• I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen.

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• It is a pleasure to carry out the duties of a citizen and to receive in return a receipt or a neat styrene card with one’s name on it certifying, so to speak, one’s right to exist.

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• “Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? I remember at the time of the wreck—people were so kind and helpful and solid. Everyone pretended that our lives until that moment had been every bit as real as the moment itself and that the future must be real too, when the truth was that our reality had been purchased only by Lyell’s death. In another hour or so we had all faded out again and gone our dim ways.”

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• New Orleans
• Gentilly, New Orleans
• French Quarter
• Garden District, New Orleans
• St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana
• Faubourg Marigny
• Chicago

Organizations edit see section history

• Walgreen's: Add a description of this organization.
• Times-Picayune
• Alcoa

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• styrene: a colorless, water-insoluble liquid, C 8 H 8 , having a penetrating aromatic odor, usually prepared from ethylene and benzene or ethylbenzene, that polymerizes to a clear transparent material and copolymerizes with other materials to form synthetic rubbers.
• carbine: 1. a light, gas-operated semiautomatic rifle. 2. (formerly) a short rifle used in the cavalry.
• boogalee: New Orleans slang for a person of Cajun descent.
• prefatory: of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a preface
• lieder: a typically 19th-century German art song characterized by the setting of a poetic text in either strophic or through-composed style and the treatment of the piano and voice in equal artistic partnership.
• gelid: very cold; icy.
• gnosis: knowledge of spiritual matters; mystical knowledge.
• peristyle: a colonnade surrounding a building or an open space.
• minatory: menacing; threatening.
• concertina: wire with razor-sharp edges or projections, placed in coils as a barrier along the tops of fences or walls, as at a prison.
• williwaw: a violent squall that blows in near-polar latitudes, as in the Strait of Magellan, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands.
• merde: excrement
• mistral: a cold, dry, northerly wind common in southern France and neighboring regions.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Zuleika Dobson, and followed by Death Comes for the Archbishop.

Preceded by To the Lighthouse, and followed by Trader.

Preceded by The Leopard, and followed by Angle of Repose.

Preceded by The Magus, and followed by Under the Net.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Walker Percy (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• National Book Award (1962: Fiction, Winner)
• Time 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923-2005
• Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century (#60)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( P ) › Percy, Walker
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary