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When Dr. Tom More is released on parole from state prison, he returns to Feliciana, Louisiana, the parish where he was born and bred, where he practiced psychiatry before his arrest. He immediately notices something strange in almost everyone around him: unusual sexual behavior in women patients, a bizarre loss of inhibition, his own wife's extraordinary success as bridge tournaments, during which her mind seems to function like a computer. With the help of his attractive cousin, Dr. Lucy Lipscomb, Dr. More begins to uncover a criminal experimentto "improve" people's behavior by drugging the local water supply. But beyond this scheme are activities so sinister that Dr. More can only wonder if the whole world has gone crazy -- or he has . . .… (more)
User reviews
The story is a kind of conspiracy, about a large-scale
I was surprised to see and wondered how such a novel could still work, published as it was in 1987. Possibly, readers were forgiving, accepting a deal of inferiority from a celebrated novelist at the end of his career. The feel of the book is that of a story which might have been spectacular in the late 50s - early 60s (thinking of A clockwork orange), but is quite misplaced in the late 80s. The writing is not bad, but the story is unimaginative and peopled with cardboard characters.
The above paragraph is something I wrote 40% of the way through the book, which I've now finished. I suppose there was no way it could have lived up to the high
Despite my generally tolerant view toward books with "disturbing" content, I have to say I was somewhat rattled by this one. I believe the author does go a bit overboard with his depictions of some of the unsavory events that transpire in this book, and I would therefore -- sadly -- not recommend Thanatos Syndrome to readers who are easily offended. This is a shame, actually, because the serious issues the book treats are very much worth thinking about, and I'm grateful to Walker Percy for giving us a narrative where we are forced to think about them. And I do stand by my initial assessment of Thanatos Syndrome in terms of the characters, the plot, and flow of the narrative. Even when things started to become disturbing, the book was still all but impossible to put down. If you can rein in your "sensitivities", the book is just too Good a Read to ignore.
All in all, I had hoped for more and the first chapters of the book promised more. I was disappointed in this effort, although Percy's talent is unmistakable. I'll try another of Percy's titles before discounting him.
Like "Love in the Ruins," "The Thanatos Syndrome" comes off as sort of "thriller of ideas," but the its pace is slacker, it's plot less tightly wound. You get some amusing adventures in pharmacology, contract bridge, and duck hunting, but, sadly enough Percy's legendary political prescience more-or-less fails him here, as he seems to fall for one of the eighties' most notorious media-generated panics. Even so, "The Thanatos Syndrome" works beautifully in certain ways, and in certain places. The section in which Dr. Tom More listens to the reminiscences of a German emigrant priest is both elegant and sad, for example. And, of course, there's Percy's writing, which is natural, flowing, engaging and enjoyable as ever. I'm not sure that "The Thanatos Syndrome" is really a successful novel, but I'm not sure that Percy was capable of writing a novel that really wasn't worth reading. Recommended, as usual, to Walker Percy's admirers.
Percy, who himself had medical and pathology training, described this kind of philosophical book as a "diagnostic novel." Although the emphasis is clearly on the book's ideas and moral themes, The Thanatos Syndrome is also a medical thriller. As such, it was almost inevitable that the author would revisit a theme that he dealt with on numerous occasions in earlier novels: the relationship between the "abnormal" and the rest of the nominally healthy and sane society. The recovery of the "real" through pain, suffering, or illness underlies almost all of Percy's fiction. It is rooted in his conviction (with a nod to pioneer psychologist Carl Jung), that at least some of our neuroses, psychoses, anxieties, or depressions may be more than just symptoms; they may actually be resources for learning something about our inner "selves."
The relationship between the sane and the abnormal in the novel seems curiously reversed, almost like in Saul Bellow's Herzog. It has been noted that the author himself described his fictional design as combining Bellow's depth of character and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s, outrageousness and satire. In The Thanatos Syndrome words of apocalyptic warning are spoken by Father Rinaldo Smith, an aging, decrepit, and cranky priest who is given to seizures, catatonia, and bouts of odd behavior. While he is hardly a figure to command respect, Smith is a typical Percy creation whose purpose is to make us question who really deserves to be branded as "crazy."
The theme of alienation is also important in this work. Dr. Tom More's return from federal prison has him unsure if society has changed or if, instead, he has lost touch as a result of his years in prison. His alienation and status as an outsider allow him to ask questions that no one else cares to. Father Smith, declared mentally unsound by More, appears to have a firmer grasp on morality than does society, as represented by the duo of Comeaux and Van Dorn, both of whom represent the forces of evil.
Although the novel is in some ways structured as a thriller, the reader never gets the impression that More is in serious danger. The threats against him are subtle: implied loss of his favored parole status, arrests for trespassing, and a cable television van that appears to be following him. The subtlety of the threats underscores the idea that society as a whole can be attacked nonviolently, with damage done before anyone realizes the danger. I found this concluding novel of Percy both convincing due to its strong structure while not as emotionally powerful as either The Moviegoer or The Second Coming. I would, however, recommend it to readers interested in southern fiction or Walker Percy.