Title: Percyscapes
First published: 1999
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.
Subjects: History and criticism, American fiction, Knowledge, Fugue (Psychology) in literature, Intellectual life, Semiotics and literature, Psychology, In literature, Memory in literature, Literature, Literatur, Eskapismus, Geschichte 1900-1999, Bewusstsein, Südstaaten, Knowledge and learning
Places: Southern States
People: Walker Percy (1916-)
Time periods: 1865-, 20th century
LC classification: PS261 .R693 1999