Kathy is for LOVERS

When reading Walker Percy’s essay, I did not find it intensely struggling. By no means was it as enjoyable as Harry Potter, but I did find some of Percy’s points interesting. Although I understood that Percy was trying to convey the notion of loss through his three examples, I feel there should have been more of a transition. After re-reading sentences over, I was able to understand what he is trying to say, but it seemed that there must be a better process to do so.

I felt his first example was by far his best. I could really understand what he means by people going on vacation and not really seeing what they have traveled long distances to see. Modern Americans have lost all hope of anything that even resembles traditional values because they have been clouded by possesions and other things of little importance. This is why when people go on vacation they are unable to really “see” the Grand Canyon, because that image is blocked by the day spa and gift shops that are inevitably built right beside it. What I did not agree with, however, is that no one would ever be able to really “see” because it has already been “seen”. I feel that once the mind is cleared from all of the garbage that popular culture has filled it with, everyone has the ability to really “see” and appreciate what is truly there.

I felt that this essay was cliche not in the way of normal sayings, but in the tone of the writing. Percy took the typically atypical approach of being the “opposite” point of view. Instead of taken the normal approach to looking at things (that is, that when people go sightseeing they actually go sightseeing, for example) he took the opposite of that (people are not seeing what they have come to see). This is equivalent to the group of kids who dress differently to go against the crowd, but in turn are all dressing the same and just conforming to something different.