The Moviegoer
Technical:
- ID: 91
- Added: 2025-09-02
- Updated: 2025-09-02
- ISBN: 9781453216255
- Publisher: Open Road Media
- Published: 2011-03-29
- Reviews: 4
In this National Book Award–winning novel from a “brilliantly breathtaking writer,” a young Southerner searches for meaning in the midst of Mardi Gras (The New York Times Book Review). On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is a lost soul. A stockbroker and member of an established New Orleans family, Binx’s one escape is the movie theater that transports him from the falseness of his life. With Mardi Gras in full swing, Binx, along with his cousin Kate, sets out to find his true purpose amid the excesses of the carnival that surrounds him. Buoyant yet powerful, The Moviegoer is a poignant indictment of modern values, and an unforgettable story of a week that will change two lives forever. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Walker Percy including rare photos from the author’s estate.
Reviews
Pull quotes
- "The movies served as an ideal contrast... more intense, more real, than everyday life."
- "Afternoons, when he generally went to the movies, were for him times of anomie and even despair."
- "The Moviegoer tells the story of Binx Bolling... left him alienated from his own life."
Pull quotes
- "Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal."
- "Nothing remains but desire—a relentless yearning for life, love, and meaning, despite recognizing the futility of such pursuits."
- "The pursuit itself may be the only certainty."
Pull quotes
- "Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, 'The Moviegoer' is a genuine American classic."
- "Percy's work displays a combination of existential questioning, Southern sensibility, and deep Catholic faith."
- "Binx embarks on a quest - a harebrained search for authenticity that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin Kate, and sends him reeling through the gaudy chaos of the French Quarter."
Pull quotes
- I enjoyed The Moviegoer, but I was a little disappointed in the ending.
- The Moviegoer is a wonderful novel - gentle, yes, but profound also in a characteristically dreamy and oblique way.
- I also compared it to Catcher in the Rye, as well as The...