In college, under the influence of the Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, Percy began to express a skepticism in science's ability to answer his deepest questions by converting to Catholicism, embracing a religion full of mystery. Most famous as a southern novelist and one of the most influential Catholic literary voices of the 20th century, Percy lost his father to suicide at 13 and his mother to a car accident two years later. Percy was positioned to write a unique work. "That you will be exposed, that is, that the unique unformulability, the singular nought, which you secretly believe yourself to be, will be exposed at last, the one black hole among a billion other ordinary stars?"Īs with each question, Percy follows with the note "(CHECK ONE)." The reader is provided options from the straightforward (the fear of boredom) to the absurd (the fear that an awkward silence will lead to global Armageddon) to the tragic (that someone's feelings are bound to get hurt) to the final, most existential option: In one question, Percy asks his readers to explain why the talk show host Johnny Carson described himself as panicked at the prospect of one-on-one conversation at parties. The book's humor is the segue to its thoughtfulness: Its questions force a laugh and lead a thought.
Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos is one of the funniest books I've ever read.Ī parody of 1980s self-help books, Cosmos, published in 2000, is structured as a set of 20 questions and thought experiments, each revealing the absurdity of pat answers to the place of human beings in the universe.
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