The Loss of the Creature

I enjoyed reading Walker Percy’s The Loss of the Creature. It made some very interesting arguments and gave me a different perspective on things that are studied and how they should be approached when put in front of you. There were a few parts of his writing that I did not quite understand. One was how he was so negative. It seemed to me as if Percy was constantly showing everything in a negative light instead of showing the good things about how the world has changed, especially when talking about the Grand Canyon. Also, it seemed to me as if the cases he proposed were quite extreme. How often will a couple mistakenly show up at a camp site and then bring back a scientist to study it, remembering its whereabouts and the natives seeing no problem with this. Seems a little unlikely to me.

The only struggle I had with this reading was the part about the Grand Canyon. Percy jumped around too much and how did he jump from people coming to visit and finding unmarked trails to having the hotel he mentions be a home for wounded soldiers? That was a little to far fetched. I struggled grasping the concept of the Grand Canyon ever being anything but a vacation area.

Finally, this reading did tie in to our class discussion on cliches. Every scenario Percy proposed was typical to me. Someone finding a hidden tribe in an unmarked area, people looking for new ways to view a common object, and the student taking everything he has been taught and not understanding conceptually but in the way the textbook or teacher tells them to. These are cliche assumptions that everyone sees happening and are not original to any thinker.