In an article published almost twenty years ago, Walker Percy talked of modern man's peculiar predicament, the result of secular man living under the protection of a tradition he ridicules and of religious man being unable to live the life his faith demands. Percy compares "our posture" to that of "the cat in the cartoon who ran off the cliff and found himself standing up in the air. Maybe he can get back to earth by backing up; on the other hand he might be in for a radical change of perspective."… After three novels showing the contortions of the cat in midair, Percy's new novel, Lancelot, is a dialogue between secular man and religious man on what the world may look like once the cat discovers that he is too far from the cliff to get back. (p. 186)
Lancelot clarifies his position through a mad black/white reduction of moral choices. Despite its limitations, such a reduction may be seductive to those of us tired of the complicated—and often fruitless—ironies of modern life. In questioning Lancelot's sanity, we are led to the central ethical question: How do we avoid the intolerance of false simplicity without slipping into the quagmire of relativism? Percy's answer seems to be that ethical questions ultimately have religious answers. Thus Percy uses Lancelot not only as a voice for satire, but also—and primarily—as an object of satire. Though Percy would agree that all the ills Lancelot rails against are deplorable, he suggests that these ills are best seen as symptoms of an even more serious disease than the moral decay which has existed in even the most religious societies. Lancelot's disease is full-fledged secularism, left unchecked by his refusal to accept the adulterated vaccine of contemporary religion….
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