Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: The Moviegoer

Author: Walker Percy

Narrator: Christopher Hurt

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-23-08

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 353 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Binx's life floats casually along until one fateful Mardi Gras week, when a bizarre series of events leads him to his unlikely salvation. In his half-brother Lonnie, who is confined to a wheelchair and soon to die, and his stepcousin Kate, whose predicament is even more ominous, Binx begins to find the sort of "certified reality" that had eluded him everywhere but at the movies.

Critic Reviews:

"In a gentle Southern accent narrator Christopher Hurt delivers the story with a slow, lazy lilt which suits the text and evokes a pervading spiritual emptiness." (AudioFile)

"Clothed in originality, intelligence, and a fierce regard for man's fate....Percy has a rare talent for making his people look and sound as though they were being seen and heard for the first time by anyone." (Time)

Members Reviews:

Percy's Prose Dances with Grace, Charm and Style

Before I read 'the Moviegoer' my only real exposure to Walker Percy was reading A Confederacy of Dunces (a novel not written by Percy, but one which he discovered, published and wrote the forward to) and through his friendship with Shelby Foote. Anyway, fifty pages into 'the Moviegoer', I was ready to declare my undying love for Walker Percy. 'The Moviegoer' reminded me of a southern Catholic Graham Greene + F. Scott Fitzgerald + William Gaddis. With Greene's Catholic ambiguity and Fitzgerald's sad, romantic tone and Gaddis' playful allusiveness Percy dances with grace, charm and style through the minefield of the modern/postmodern world.

Deep and intelligent

The thing that struct me most of all in this book is that the the author has managed the rare feat of creating a truly intelligent and aware character. Somehow, I almost always get the feeling that writers hold something back from the knowledge or understanding of their characters; the character is never smart enough to see the parallels and symbolism that we, as readers, are expected to follow. And "The Moviegoer" is not like this, which makes it a moving and meaningful book.

Other than that, I found the plot, the ideas and the writing beautiful. In fact, after finishing the book I realized it reminded me of another literary/philosophical masterpiece, "The Nausea" by Jean Paul Sartre. And sure enough, a quick google search showed me that many critics have written about this.

As for the narration: I'm no expert on New Orleans accents, but I thought the reading was very well done, and it was close enough for my ears.

In short: not a book for everyone's taste, but if you like this sort of thing this is a book that will keep you thinking for a long time.

The Moral Project

It wasn't until I had strolled around several blocks of the French Quarter (or most of the novel) with the charming narrator Binx that I realized I had joined Binx on a journey, or a search...a Camu, Kierkegaard or Frankl search...for meaning and purpose. One of *those kinds* of books, (listed as one of the 100 most important books of the century)--I was a philosophy/psych major so I enjoy those kinds of books, and the aftereffect...those haunting days afterward when the book still has you in its tenacious mental grip.