The Moviegoer Book

This is my favorite novel of all time. It is the story of Binx Bolling, a successful, socially prominent New Orleans stockbroker from an old and wealthy family, and how he faces his life in the week of Carnival leading up to his thirtieth birthday on Ash Wednesday. Binx is an avid and successful skirtchaser, but he really loves his stepcousin Kate, a manic depressive. The book tells us that a life spent seeking happiness is almost doomed to failure, that happiness, both as a concept and as a reality, is difficult to grasp and difficult to retain. Instead we might strive for a life of alert, intelligent engagement with those around us. It will involve pain as well as pleasure, but it is an approach that gives us the possibility of authenticity. "Joy and sadness come by turns, I know now. Beauty and bravery make you sad, and victory breaks your heart, but life goes on, and on we go..." The six or seven major characters (just about the right number) show us how many ways there are of dealing with the world and with one another. We are not sure how the lives of Binx and Kate and the others "end up," but we see how the world affects them and they affect the world. This is, in a sense, a very modern novel. To give an example, there is a scene in which Kate comes to Binx at 3:00 in the morning. Binx has been warned by his aunt that this is a possibility, so he is sitting in the bus stop in front of his house when Kate's taxi pulls up. They discuss their lives and their possible marriage, and, as dawn approaches, the disease comes upon Kate again.

"Ohhhh," Kate groans, Kate herself now, "I'm so afraid."

"I know."

"What am I going to do?

"You mean right now?"

"Yes."

"First we'll go to my car. Then we'll drive to the French Market and get some coffee. Then we'll go home."

"Is everything going to be all right?"

"Yes."

"Tell me. Say it."

"Everything is going to be all right."

In an older, more classical literature, "Everything is going to be all right" would mean just that: I'll see to it that the bills are paid and your power-seeking brother won't kill your sons and the crops will come in every year. Binx knows that he is unable to give this kind of assurance, because life is not like that. I think that what his "Everything is going to be all right" means is that things may go well, things may not go well, but Binx will face it all with Kate, no matter the difficulties of standing with her. In this case, I am convinced, "Everything is going to be all right" is the functional equivalent of "I love you." And in the contemporary world, maybe that is the best we can do, and maybe it is enough.