Percyscapes
Subtitle: the fugue state in twentieth-century southern fiction
By: Robert W. Rudnicki.
Series: Southern literary studies
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Baton Rouge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 167
Subjects: Percy, Walker, 1916- -- Knowledge -- Psychology.; American fiction -- Southern States -- History and criticism.; American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Semiotics and literature -- Southern States.; Fugue (Psychology) in literature.; Memory in literature.; Southern States -- Intellectual life -- 1865-; Southern States -- In literature.
Description: In Percyscapes, Robert Rudnicki probes the works of Walker Percy to diagnose a fundamental but till now unrecognized aspect of southern fiction of this century. The fugue state - a form of hysterical dissociation marked by temporary amnesia and physical wandering - expresses, Rudnicki argues, the existential conflict of wanting to both integrate with the world and escape it.

He offers compelling evidence that the pattern of amnesia and escape rife in Percy's fiction and nonfiction is connected to the author's absorbing interest in language. And that relationship, he shows, provides a conceptually powerful schema for interpreting Percy's literary predecessors as well as other contemporary southern novelists who make use of the literal or figurative fugue state.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [149]-158) and index.