| Summary: | Walker Percy's second novel, The Last Gentleman, contains an episode involving the main character, Will Barrett, and a peregrine falcon. "Peregrine" is the keyword in this novel, for the word leads us through its derivation to other words based upon the same root as "peregrine. " These other words direct more than lead us into the idea of the genuineness of self--a persistent idea in Percy's novels. The words unequivocally imply- and then provide for--the connections to be made between these words and the main characters in the novels; the main characters themselves who are, in character and in action, both the source for the words and the embodiments of the related words. It is perhaps indicative of the continuity in Percy's thinking and writing that although this key word "peregrine" occurs in his second novel, it not only refers back to the first novel, The Moviegoer, and the main character of that book, Binx Bolling, and links that book and character to The Last Gentleman and to Barrett; but it also foreshadows the third novel, Love in the Ruins, and its main character, Dr. Thomas More.
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