Walker Percy's Lancelot

Lancelot
Percy, Walker
1977

8/21/08
Lancelot
My junior year lit teacher handed out books to each student in the class based on what he had seen of our personalities and interests in literature. He chose this book, Lancelot, for me because of my psychology interest. It begins in a cell of some kind and the main character claims he is unsure whether it is a prison or a "nuthouse." The main character is the narrator and the text is him explaining his thoughts and experiences to an old friend. He doesn't want to remember certain events of his past because they are too painful for him and even doesn't let himself recognize his old friend in the beginning because he brought up too much pain.

The narration from the main character's discussion was somewhat monotonous at the start of the book. There has yet to be dialogue so when his friend would say something the text would be something like "What's that you say? You say this? Well let me answer this question of yours..." Not to that extent but it got pretty tedious to read. As the plot developed it became tolerable and much more interesting. I can see that the book will become full of conflict as he recalls his past experiences unwillingly and the psychology of it all is quite apparent. His story involves unfaithfulness and his strange analysis of the emotions he felt from this unfaithfulness. I'm very interested in finding out how he got to this "nuthouse" he finds himself in.