Possum, and Other Receipts for the Recovery of "Southern" Being (MERCER UNIVERSITY LAMAR MEMORIAL LECTURES) - Hardcover

Montgomery, Marion

9780820309262: Possum, and Other Receipts for the Recovery of "Southern" Being (MERCER UNIVERSITY LAMAR MEMORIAL LECTURES)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820309265 ISBN 13: 9780820309262

Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr, 1987

In this volume, Marion Montgomery ponders two very different varieties of possum as the starting point for a literary, philosophical, and poetic inquiry into the nature of Southernness. The first possum is the familiar marsupial, native to the American South, in whose modest status can be seen an image of the lowly ground to which all our dreams must remain anchored. The second possum is the first-person singular present of the Latin verb posse; rendered as "I am able," this possum embodies the movement in which men, since the Old Adam, have elevated themselves beyond their estate, taking for themselves sole credit for the world they see around them.

Prescribing a way of thought by which men can regain the balance that modernity has led them to relinquish, Possum, and Other Receits for the Recovery of "Southern" Being posits a concept of Southernness that is a state of the soul rather than a result of geography, a Southernness in which man's mind and his moments of vision are kept in harmony with nature, with the reality of the world given to man.

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About the Author:

MARION MONTGOMERY was a poet, novelist, and critic who taught English at the University of Georgia for more than thirty years. His most recent books include With Walker Percy at the Tupperware Party: In Company with Flannery O'Connor, T. S. Eliot, and Others, and Hillbilly Thomist: Flannery O'Connor, St. Thomas and the Limits of Art, as well as On Matters Southern: Essays About Literature and Culture, 1964-2000.

Review:

Montgomery's book is well written. It is occasionally witty, often erudite, always engaging―and there's not a vague sentence in its pages. . . . Certainly Montgomery is right in asserting that Western Man's attitude toward Nature and his consequent attitude toward himself have infected the roots of Western being. . . . Montgomery's concerns are the right ones.

(Southern Quarterly)

The drama of Montgomery's account is the realism of being over against the political and literary ideologies of the modern age which seek to substitute for this reality that the genuine poet or philosopher finds. Montgomery is at all times deadly serious and quite funny-the sign of any healthy incarnational metaphysics.

(Homiletic & Pastoral Review)

Montgomery's recovery of Southern being is nothing less than a recovery of our full human sensibility. It is an important book . . . Montgomery uncovers the still point to which our political and theological clamor must be tuned. His profound and compelling book brings us to a great height of vision, while setting us on the path of common sense and humanity.

(This World)

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