Percy's breezy, glossy magazine format disguises an earnest introduction to a philosophy of the self in the late 20th Century U.S. culture, more accurately an eschatology especially concerned with the linguistic turn in late Continental theory and its relevance for middle class consumers. The initial 11 chapters (short, conversational, often presented in the list-centric or mini-survey trappings favoured by grocery checkout diversions and which Percy implicitly mocks) treat of various summaries of psychology and popular understanding of the Self. In fact, the book provides no traditional chapter structure, rather beginning with a cold open and careering to its termination.

Tom Bartlett in the Chronicle of Higher Education asseverates the "source material" for much of Lost in the Cosmos is found in the essays reprinted earlier in Message In A Bottle. While true, Cosmos gives that content different emphases, a slightly different spin. Perhaps he hoped to reach different readers, or make a second effort at reaching the same readers indirectly. Wikipedia pointed me to an online lecture based on the book, and this too is interesting, especially in arguing that Percy extends a tradition followed by C.S. Lewis (That Hideous Strength or The Screwtape Letters) and G.K. Chesterton (Everlasting Man), to "smuggle Christianity back into Christendom" as initially suggested by Kierkegaard. Neither replaces the book itself, unsurprisingly.

Both Kierkegaard and modern semiotics give us leave to speak of the self as being informed -- "possessed," if you like, at certain historical stages of belief and unbelief. It becomes possible, whether one believes in God or not, soul or not, to agree that in an age in which the self is not informed by cosmological myths, by totemism, by belief in God -- whether the God of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam -- it must necessarily and by reason of its own semiotic nature be informed by something else. [178]

That something else is both unsettling and logically untenable. "It is possessed by the spirit of the erotic and the secret love of violence," all the more unsettling in this nuclear age, and logically untenable given that a Self (by definition a knowing subject rather than a known object) cannot know itself by reference to itself, that is to say, know itself as an object. Rather the Self must know itself transcendentally. Necessarily, then, Percy concludes the modern Self is lost. Percy notes the Self feasibly might again become found, but does not pursue that question here. ( )

What a strange, unclassifiable, brilliant book. I can't think of a thing to compare it to. I need some time to sit with it before I declare it the best thing I've ever read, but it blew me away. ( )

An engaging and thoughtful book about several topics relevant to our contemporary culture. Percy uses an unusual style like a Socratic provocateur challenging the reader to think about aspects of our culture, the nature of language, and the meaning of life. The book is one that, like those of Plato, Marcus Aurelius, or Wittgenstein, requires concentration, demands rereading, and ultimately encourages the reader to think seriously about the nature of the "Cosmos" and his own life. ( )

I think I might have had too high of hopes going into this. I think Walker Percy is really incredibly perceptive and amazing but I think his talents are still best applied to his fiction. I would like to give it three and a half stars but this is apparently not an option! harumph. ( )

re-read/re-skim. I thought this book might be one to send to a friend afflicted with nihilism. But probably not. Sharp and funny, in the Percy style.