On Percy Walker's The Last Gentleman

I had a longish review of The Last Gentleman but lost it through Google. So here's the shortened version:

Williston Bibb Barret was lost. With much help he discovered that his troubles belonged to man's condition and not to him alone. He found a future when he accepted one--in this case, the orthodox life of marriage, kids, church, and so on. Not as good as The Moviegoer but still very good.

Hulking mess

Not long ago I found myself thinking about  the Incredible Hulk movies. I much prefer the Ang Lee version of Hulk starring Eric Bana. Besides getting to enjoy the delicacy and subtlety that comes with Lee, his version gives more food for thought because Banner's demons dwell within and Lee puts them in focus. He explores Banner's feelings about his father, his resentment and anger, his loneliness, and his own confused identity.  But in the second version, The Incredible Hulk directed by Louis Leterrier and starring awesome Edward Norton, the focus is mostly on Banner's external enemies. His fiercest battle is with the renegade demon hulk--Tim Roth's character--and their conflict so clearly demarcates good and evil that it diminishes the overall depth of the subject. Even Banner's own anger issue is externalized in the form of the pulse monitor he wears on his wrist--this annoying, beeping measuring stick he vigilantly watches.

In addition to being more visually poetic and richer in substance, Lee's version has few if any clumsy parts. His use of story board frames plays well with the film's comic book origins. Contrast this with the wild leaps in the second version; for example, how about the scene in which Hulk fights the army on the college campus?: The helicopter crashes, debris flies, and quite suddenly the bright, sunny afternoon becomes a dark and stormy night, rain pouring down on the wreckage and the Hulk as he cradles Betty Ross. And the plot? To deal with the Hulk, the army attempts to make another one? Experimentally? Nah.

Binx Bolling & Authenticity

Were you to accompany Binx Bolling to a movie, you'd be carted off to some out-of-the-way cinema. Once there, you'd witness his small talk with the cashier or the manager, him asking after their well-being and goings-on, and maybe his inquiring about the film itself. Not the movie: The actual reel of film. In short, you'd get a sort of show before the show. Bolling, protagonist of Walker Percy's 1961 book The Moviegoer, does all this in hopes of guaranteeing his own authenticity. He figures anyone can go see the 7 o'clock show. And being anyone is exactly what he wants to avoid.

Bolling differentiates his experience--and by extension, himself--by growing it from a simple routine act to one enmeshed in a variety of happenings. If he should he go to the 7 o'clock show, Bolling must learn that the reel of celluloid winding away overhead isn't just any old piece of celluloid, that the ticket-taker isn't just any ticket-taker. It seems anonymity is contagious.

This interested me, so I began to think of the result of living such a perspective. He can look back and relate a memory. And what is memory? The result of defining the Then from the Now. Then and Now: A duality fabricated or correctly perceived? At any given time either concept may be privileged: The good old days or Carpe Diem?

But are they really different? Isn't the event still happening? Why must it be happening immediately in front of you to be "happening"?