Lanterns on the Levee

After several false starts I finally read Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John M. Barry. There is a lot to learn from that book about both the Lower Mississippi River and Southern culture. Frankly I found the Percy family in general and Senator LeRoy Percy of Mississippi in particular to be a lot more interesting than James B. Eads, Andrew A. Humphreys, and Henry M. Shreve combined.

So I bought Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son, by William Alexander "Will" Percy. He was Senator Percy's only surviving child and a major influence on the Fugitive Poets and Southern Agrarians. I am a big fan of the Southern Agrarians.

I fault Will Percy's writing in one regard and that is he was an insufferable pedant to the detriment of his message. I like to learn new words and his book introduced me to several good ones - my favorite is "yclept" - but have no desire to read every piece of classic literature ever written just to understand his analogies. On the other hand he makes me wish that I could go back 100 years and see Greenville, Mississippi, as it was then. Not only were the members of the Mississippi Delta aristocracy the social equals of the denizens of Uptown New Orleans but how many towns its size can boast of being the home of literary geniuses like Will Percy, Walker Percy, Shelby Foote, and Hodding Carter, II? It had to be a fascinating place.

In his day Will Percy was considered to be a flaming liberal and probably was in the atmosphere of when and where he lived. Today, however, many deem him to have been an old school Southerner and racist to the core. I am quick to say it is a mistake to apply today's standards to yesterday's way of thinking. The irony is that Senator LeRoy Percy was all about the New South based on money and his noblesse oblige apparently extended no further than what was economically and socially advantageous for himself and the Mississippi Delta society he lived his life creating, while his son, Will, was all about the Old South based on honor and his concern for the less fortunate was real. There are other father / son dichotomies. Senator Percy was a Protestant and all man yet never served a day of military service. Will Percy was a homosexual yet also a devout practicing Catholic who served with distinction in World War I.

Tomorrow I will begin increasing my knowledge by starting to read The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family, by Bertram Wyatt-Brown.

Read Lanterns on the Levee. It is a good book and I think you will enjoy it.