Tag: the moviegoer

Book Passage of the Week – Everyone is Dead

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I read The Moviegoer in 2011. This quote occurs to me from time to time, especially when I’m on Facebook. Could I adjust to life off-the-grid? I think so. A home, a typewriter, a bookshelf. What else do I need? The complexity of a human being. But some people are nothing more than a few emojis and an empty reaction to this month’s fashionable outrage.

For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead.

It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can. At such times it seems that the conversation is spoken by automatons who have no choice in what they say. I hear myself or someone else saying things like: “In my opinion the Russian people are a great people, but–” or “Yes, what you say about the hypocrisy of the North is unquestionably true. However–” and I think to myself: this is death. Lately it is all I can do to carry on such everyday conversations, because my cheek has developed a tendency to twitch of its own accord.

Missing Hong Kong Booksellers + Book Passage of the Week (1/9/2016) – from The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy

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HK booksellers have gone missing, if you haven’t heard the news. One of them was a British citizen, so the CCP is now kidnapping citizens of other countries for publishing books they don’t want you to read.

And don’t doubt for a second they’re behind it. You can’t put anything past the mainland regime. When you operate the strictest internet censorship in the world and require companies to turn over customer data as a condition to do business in their country…yeah, it’s not a stretch at all.

The appropriate response would be to disseminate these books as widely as possible. Far as I know, the book is about Xi Jiping’s alleged mistress. If I had more power, I’d do everything I could to not only publish it but make it as widely read as possible: every language, every country. Fuck your hurt feelings.

As it stands, I’m here, blogging about it. If you want to help, spread the word. Sign the petition. Don’t let them get away with this shit. You think this just stays in Hong Kong? Wake up. It sets a horrible precedent all over the globe.

This passage is from The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. He’s the guy who helped get Confederacy of Dunces published, which is how I knew about him and ended up reading The Moviegoer:

For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead.

It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can. At such times it seems that the conversation is spoken by automatons who have no choice in what they say. I hear myself or someone else saying things like: “In my opinion the Russian people are a great people, but—” or “Yes, what you say about the hypocrisy of the North is unquestionably true. However—” and I think to myself: this is death.

I felt the same way the other day at work, when people had a length discussion about whether Caitlyn Jenner still has a penis, and does this make him a man or a woman? I can’t even pretend to care about this shit.