The Moviegoer in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 16, 2012 Nanosynergy rated it liked it

Shelves: 2015read, fiction-1960s, the-south, reviewed, fiction, literature, 100bestnovels-ml-board, national-book-award, read-ml100

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Binx Bolling, on the brink of turning 30, is vaguely 'searching.' Binx, after recovering from a serious injury in the Korean War, has returned to New Orleans and found he is good at making money as a stockbroker--much to the disappointment of his wealthy New Orleans family who wants him to become a doctor. Binx lacks an ability to sustain male friendships and prefers instead to spend his spare time going to movies and bedding a series of secretaries. Escape into movies is central to how he sees Binx Bolling, on the brink of turning 30, is vaguely 'searching.' Binx, after recovering from a serious injury in the Korean War, has returned to New Orleans and found he is good at making money as a stockbroker--much to the disappointment of his wealthy New Orleans family who wants him to become a doctor. Binx lacks an ability to sustain male friendships and prefers instead to spend his spare time going to movies and bedding a series of secretaries. Escape into movies is central to how he sees his world and deals with life.

He is from a wealthy, urban New Orleans family. Upon losing his father and his brother at an early age, Binx is basically raised by his paternal grandmother and attends boarding schools. His mother is considered a 'devout' Roman Catholic and, as a result, Binx is viewed as catholic. His mother remarries and Binx has several step-brothers and sisters that live on the coast.

I finished this book some time ago, but have not been able to write a review as, frankly, I find this book hard to review. Some fine writing and a well-written look at a man's mid-life search for purpose and direction, but personally I could find little sympathy for the vague search by this privileged, self-centered, womanizing, nearly 30 year-old man. Additionally, the racism and language used to describe African Americans is disturbing. The Roman Catholic theme and the Mardi Gras week events tie into the arc of this search/decision period for Binx. Although, in the end, it is Binx's marriage to his manic-depressive second cousin Kate, and the ultimatum from his grandmother to make a decision about his future on his 30th birthday that seemingly end his search. He agrees to go to med school and settles down in a little house to care for fragile Kate. There is also some hint that he returns to catholicism. But I'm not sure in the end if Binx just ends his search and settles for quiet despair or if he just grows up and moves on.

Given what I've read in book reviews, perhaps one thing this book does well is capture this angst of male thirty-somethings as they face the responsibilities of adulthood - particularly for a significant number of male readers. It is also a look at the urban South - no plantations, farming, rivers.

Binx Quotes on His 'Search:'

"What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple, at least for a fellow like me; so simple that it is easily overlooked. the search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a castaway do? Why, he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair."

"Tuthfully, it is the fear of exposing my own ignorance which constrains me from mentioning the object of my search. For, to begin with, I cannot even answer this, the simplest and most basic of all questions: Am I, in my search, a hundred miles ahead of my fellow Americans or a hundred miles behind them? That is to say: Have 98% of Americans already found what I seek or are they so sunk in everydayness that not even the possibility of a search has occured to them? On my honor, I do not know the answer."

One Strange Finding in the Book Given Current Events:

"A krewe is a group of people who get together at carnival time and put on a parade and a ball. Anyone can form a krewe. Of course there are the famous old krewes like Comus and Rex and the Twelfth Night, but there are also dozens of others. The other day a group of Syrians from Algiers formed a krewe named Isis."
...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 11, 2012 Ginger rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction-literature, southern

This book was great. I didn't like it.

What I mean to say is I got the impression I wasn't quite sophisticated enough for it. I had such high hopes for my first Percy. And it was all the things I knew it would be — well-written, character-driven, intelligent. All the things I usually love in a book.

There were good bits, bits of truth, and a strong sense of Place that is the mark of all good southern literature. But they were just too spread out for me to have as much impact as it could have.

I did ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Sep 25, 2013 Kay Green rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I probably picked this book up because of the title and the author;s references to movies were probably the best thing about the book. It won the National Book award in 1961 and was written from the perspective of a 29 year old man in Louisiana at that time. Reading it reminded me of trying to get through some classics in high school - I would read 3 pages and have no idea what i just read. Parts were interesting because it might have shown the start of a newer mentality - questioning the stats ...more

Like · see review