Belle âme which literally means beautiful soul is an anthology which revolves around the themes of love and heartbreak. Well, this is what life is. You are going to experience things that will inspire you, and things that you will never quite come to terms with. You are going to love people that you will sometimes lose, but you will also find those who stay. Sometimes you will have to give yourself your own closure. Sometimes you will have to let go. Sometimes you will have to find comfort in being alone, in being lost. Yes, this is your life, it can be unpredictable but you are going to survive it because you’re a warrior.
A soul that's beautiful from within is all that matters today, while the one who goes with looks is just a facade. A Beautiful creation of Almighty Allah in form of a mother, friend, sibling, frontliners and many others yet to be known. A love, a journey that's beautiful in itself. A story, not so perfect ending is more appealing than a happy one. A soul full of life, smiling all the way till eternity. A soul that's pure both from inside and outside is one of the best in a way. Let your soul feels like engulfed by the senses , overwhelming and feeling each and everything wonderous. Ask yourself are you ready to manifest? Relieve yourself talking that you believe in yourself in any possible way . You all are beautiful just leave seeds of inspiration wherever you go. Embrace the real you.
Thirty years in the making, one hundred thousand patients later, the hundred numinous patients I will forever treasure. It has been said that memoirs are the narratives of our life, and as such, become the manner and method of how we make sense out of our life's journey. Indeed, I could not imagine my life without my career in the ER, since without it; I would truly feel like a naked, wizened skeleton devoid of skin, flesh or viscera. The ER experience was the alchemist's stone that touched my ordinary life, and in so many ways, made it exquisitely gilded. Many were the patients that stirred the invisible fabric of my soul, and made the ordinary universe seem so much more expansive and unequalled. The magnificence of the ER flows from the commanding variety of patients, not unlike the arresting diversity of flora in the plant kingdom, renders a regal awe upon the eyes and souls of the beholder.
From a dark history to a new beginning, but what happens when they mix? Lexi is on the road to running from her biggest fear. Hiding in a larger city doesn't mean it will go away. No. It never goes away. Fear is always there, following you in the shadows. Whether it's a real fear or just paranoia.Jamie shows her a new light in life, one that she doesn't want. She needs it though, whether she wants to admit that or not, she needs the light. She has been living in her nightmares for far too long. She needs Jamie.What will it take for Jamie to show her the life she deserves?"I'm more concerned," he pulls the blanket down, "I'm more concerned with what had you that upset." A genuine look of concern on his face.Just as my nerves were calming down, they rear their ugly face again. Deep breath. I shake my head, "It uh." I stare at him. "I, uh." I continue to stutter. Words can't escape me. I don't think I am ready to talk about it."It doesn't get better by keeping it to yourself." He stares at me, "But if you don't want me to know, then you don't have to tell me." He turns back to his phone, quietly reading through something. "If not that, then say something else. Like who are you?" He continues to stare at his phone."Nobody." The truth is, I don't know who I am.
A pair of profound dystopian novels from the “brilliantly breathtaking” New York Times–bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of The Moviegoer (The New York Times Book Review). Winner of the National Book Award for The Moviegoer, the “dazzlingly gifted” Southern philosophical author Walker Percy wrote two vividly imagined satirical novels of America’s future featuring deeply flawed psychiatrist and spiritual seeker Tom More (USA Today). Love in the Ruins is “a great adventure . . . so outrageous and so real, one is left speechless” (Chicago Sun-Times), and its sequel The Thanatos Syndrome “shimmers with intelligence and verve” (Newsday). Love in the Ruins: The great experiment of the American dream has failed. The United States is on the brink of catastrophe. Can an alcoholic, womanizing, lapsed-Catholic psychiatrist really save a society speeding toward inevitable collapse? Dr. Thomas More certainly thinks so. He has invented the lapsometer, a machine capable of diagnosing and curing the country’s spiritual afflictions. If used correctly, the lapsometer could make anxiety, depression, alienation, and racism things of the past. But in the wrong hands, it could rapidly propel the nation into chaos. “A comedy of love against a field of anarchy . . . Percy is easily one of the finest writers we have.” —The New York Times Book Review The Thanatos Syndrome: In Percy’s “ingenious” sequel, Dr. Tom More, fresh out of prison after getting caught selling uppers to truck drivers, returns home to Louisiana, determined to live a simpler life (The New York Times). But when everyone in town starts acting strangely—from losing their sexual inhibitions to speaking only in blunt, truncated sentences—More, with help from his cousin, epidemiologist Lucy Lipscomb, takes it upon himself to investigate. Together, they uncover a government conspiracy poised to rob its citizens of their selves, their free will, and ultimately their humanity. “The Thanatos Syndrome has the ambition and purposefulness to take on the world, to wrestle with its shortcomings, and to celebrate its glories.” —The Washington Post Book World
DIVDIVPercy’s stirring sequel to Love in the Ruins follows Tom More’s redemptive mission to cure the mysterious ailment afflicting the residents of his hometown/divDIV/divDIVDr. Tom More returns to his parish in Louisiana determined to live a simpler life. Fresh out of prison after getting caught selling uppers to truck drivers, he wants nothing more than to live “a small life.” But when everyone in town begins acting strangely—from losing their sexual inhibitions to speaking only in blunt, truncated sentences—More, with help from his cousin Lucy Lipscomb, takes it upon himself to reveal what and who is responsible. Their investigation leads them to the highest seats of power, where they discover that a government conspiracy is poised to rob its citizens of their selves, their free will, and ultimately their humanity./div /div
In this groundbreaking study, Gary M. Ciuba examines how four of the South's most probing writers of twentieth-century fiction -- Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, and Walker Percy -- expose the roots of violence in southern culture. Ciuba draws on the paradigm of mimetic violence developed by cultural and literary critic René Girard, who maintains that individual human nature is shaped by the desire to imitate a model. Mimetic desire may lead in turn to rivalry, cruelty, and ultimately community-sanctioned -- and sometimes ritually sanctified -- victimization of those deemed outcasts. Ciuba offers an impressively broad intellectual discussion that gives universal cultural meaning to the southern experience of desire, violence, and divinity with which these four authors wrestled and out of which they wrote. In a comprehensive analysis of Porter's semiautobiographical Miranda stories, Ciuba focuses on the prescribed role of women that Miranda imitates and ultimately escapes. O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away reveals three characters whose scandalous animosity caused by religious rivalry leads to the unbearable stumbling block of violence. McCarthy's protagonist in Child of God, Lester Ballard, appears as the culmination of a long tradition of the sacred violence of southern religion, twisted into his own bloody faith. And Percy's The Thanatos Syndrome brings Ciuba's discussion back to the victim, in Tom Moore's renunciation of a society in which scapegoating threatens to become the foundation of a new social regime. From nostalgia for the old order to visions of a utopian tomorrow, these authors have imagined the interrelationship of desire, antagonism, and religion throughout southern history. Ciuba's insights offer new ways of reading Porter, O'Connor, McCarthy, and Percy as well as their contemporaries who inhabited the same culture of violence -- violence desired, dreaded, denied, and deified.
The Declaration of Independence claims that individuals need liberty to pursue happiness, but provides little guidance on the “what” of happiness. Happiness studies and liberal theory are incomplete guides. Happiness studies offer insights into what makes people happy but happiness policy risks becoming doctrinaire. Liberal theory is better on personal liberty, but weak on the “what” of happiness. My argument is that American novelists are surer guides on the pursuit of happiness. Treated as political thinkers, my book offers a close reading of four American novelists, Tom Wolfe, Walker Percy, Edith Wharton, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and their critique of the pursuit of happiness. With a critical and friendly eye, they present the shortcomings of pursuing happiness in a liberal nation but also present alternatives and correctives possible in America. Our novelists point us toward each other in friendship as our greatest resource to guide us towards happiness.
Reluctant Witnesses: Jews and the Christian Imagination is an analysis of the ancient Christian myth that casts Jews as a 'witness-people', and this myth's presence in contemporary religious discourse. It treats diverse products of the Christian imagination, including systematic theology, works of fiction, and popular writings on biblical prophecy. The book demonstrates that the witness-people myth, which was first articulated by Augustine and which determined official attitudes towards Jews in medieval Christendom, remains a powerful force in the Christian imagination.
Walker Percy (1916–1990) considered novels the strongest tool with which to popularize great ideas among a broad audience, and, more than half a century after they first appeared in print, his works of fiction continue to fascinate contemporary readers. Despite their lasting appeal, however, Percy’s engaging narratives also contain intellectual elements that demand further explication. Philosophical themes, including existentialism, language acquisition theory, and modern Catholic theology, provide a deeper layer of meaning in Percy’s writings. Jessica Hooten Wilson’s Reading Walker Percy’s Novels serves as a companion guide for readers who enjoy Percy’s novels but may be less familiar with the works of Sartre, Camus, Kierkegaard, and Dante. In addition to clarifying Percy’s philosophies, Wilson highlights allusions to other writers within his narratives, addresses historical and political contexts, and provides insight into the creation and reception of The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, Love in the Ruins, Lancelot, The Second Coming, and The Thanatos Syndrome. An introduction covers aspects of Percy’s biography that influenced his writing, including his deep southern roots, faith, and search for meaning in life. An appendix offers an explanation of Percy’s satirical parody Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. Written in an accessible and conversational style, this primer will appeal to everyone who appreciates the nuances of Walker Percy’s fiction.
