34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ignore (this book, not the review) at your own peril, May 17, 2002
Ignore The Thanatos Syndrome at your own peril. The last novel of the late Walker Percy, this often harrowing, sometimes humorous (darkly, at least) tale should set off alarms bells as you read through this thriller. The notion of Walker Percy penning a thriller is, of itself, something odd, and a point that apparently raises the ire of many academics and even many dyed-in-the-wool Percy readers.
And this book is different from say, The Moviegoer, in which the inward musings and vexations of the protagonist are fairly insulated from the outside world and its views, opinions, influences. Moreover, Dr. More does not act as the prototypical loner characteristic of some of Percy's other protagonists. Percy's decision to write this novel as more of a fast-paced thriller, the central story occurs over just three days, must have been his attempt to shoot a flare that would draw attention to the dehumanization that started coalescing with more fervor some 15 years ago. (Now civility may be a lost cause: people consider it proper to conduct public arguments with unseen opponents by blathering all manner of nonsense into their cell phones.)
And so the flawed hero, the same disheveled, womanizing, fallen Catholic psychiatrist Thomas More, practically stumbles upon a scheme to control human behavior by adding radioisotopes to the water supply. After all, the perpetuators of the scheme remind him, look what fluoride has done for oral health. What if we can eliminate depression, crime, disease, and enhance learning, cognition, and memory at the same time? Relying on his beloved bourbon to keep him grounded, Dr. More, fresh out of prison for supplying truckers with uppers, finds his wife and children swept up in the scheme.
He plays some hunches, and together with his cousin Lucy, a skilled epidemiologist who employs what was the Internet before any of us ever thought about it, discovers a scheme that is both more far-reaching and nefarious than anything since the heyday of Nazi Germany. Dr. More also allies with Vergil Bon, Jr., whose moral center and keen intellect prove pivotal in discovering the physical means of dosing the population and in confronting the horrors of pedophilia lurking under the surface.
Both Lucy's and Bon's clearcut, strong character fly in the face of those critics who harangue Percy for creating weak or unfocused female or black characters.
Dr. More is the moral and intellectual center of the story, and, typical of many of Percy's leading characters, he struggles to reinvent himself, to get things right, to make the correct decisions. He is not awed by authority, swayed by power, or tempted by riches. Instead, he considers himself to be ''an old-fashioned physician of the soul.''
The parallels between this modern plot to make life better and to terminate anyone whose quality of life doesn't meet the "norm" are clearly drawn by Father Simon Rinaldo Smith, an alcoholic Catholic priest who has retreated to a fire tower where he scans the countryside for smoke and regards himself as a modern version of St. Simeon Stylites. Percy uses this character as a mouthpiece for much of his own philosophy, using a long confession from Father Smith to lay out his thesis about how evil festers and manifests under the guise of perceived goodness.
The first half of the novel carefully unfolds the plot, as Dr. More first suspects things are amiss, then begins connecting the dots, all the while being watched and wooed by the project's architects, who try to recruit Dr. More by challenging him to show what's inherently wrong with a macro-solution to society's woes. The second half of the book moves rapidly, surging ahead like the nail-biting pirogue trip downriver to rescue the children. The action continues as Dr. More shoots down (figuratively) the various arguments presented by Dr. Comeaux or Van Dorn.
Ultimately, Walker Percy has forged here a strikingly unconventional means for debating the philosophical ramifications of meddling with free will, the individual's right to make good or bad choices, to live in happiness or in depression, to succeed or fail on one's own merits. We need to fight for our own happiness and our own rights, he might argue, to enable us to keep at bay the darker tendencies of human nature.
Walker Percy's prose is, as always, fine, rich, precise. Percy rarely embellishes beyond what is needed, yet he can render a dead-on depiction of how people really talk, think, even move. His minor characters are not jolting or decorative, though many are eccentric, and his love of the Louisiana landscape permeates the outdoor settings.
One reading will not suffice to coax the ideas and observations from "The Thanatos Syndrome." Perhaps here, though, are some of the questions we need to ask in a time when genetic customization, "me-first" socialization, and symbolism dominate the cultural landscape; when mercy killing is legal in two European countries (so far); and terrorists and fundamentalists vie for control of our free will and civil liberties.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps the best novel I have ever read, November 25, 2003
The Thanatos Syndrome relies upon a flimsy detective story to examine the greatest issues facing Americans (perhaps all of Western culture) as we enter the 21st century. Not that the genre device fails, but that it seems so inconsequential next to the ideas which hang upon it, like the rod that supports the wardrobe of existence, itself.
Although this novel was written in the late 20th century, it feels as if it could be today or tomorrow. We are introduced to themes that are totally familiar, yet somehow bizarre: sex detached from love (and/or procreation), emphasis on results at play/work/and school, social engineering, amorality, mercy-killing, faith in the rightness of science/technology/and progress, abandonment of of our humanity. All this, and yet readable, engaging, absorbing and memorable.
If you are interested in an entertainment that makes you think and ponder the great issues of existence, while keeping you turning the pages, I highly recommend this book.
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