BONUS | The Book Ryan Holiday Keeps Coming Back To - The Daily Stoic Recap
Podcast: The Daily Stoic
Published: 2025-12-27
Duration: 33 minutes
Guests: Shiloh Brooks
Summary
Ryan Holiday revisits Walker Percy's novel 'The Moviegoer,' exploring its enduring themes of existential search and modern life's distractions. He examines how the novel's protagonist, Binks, grapples with meaninglessness despite apparent success.
What Happened
Ryan Holiday discusses his deep connection with Walker Percy's 'The Moviegoer,' a novel that explores existential themes and the search for meaning in modern life. He first read the book at age 23 or 24, while living in New Orleans and working on his first book. The novel's depiction of 'everydayness' resonated with Holiday, as it captures the mundane and superficial nature of modern life, a concept that aligns with Stoic philosophy.
The protagonist, Binks, is portrayed as a Korean War veteran and a stockbroker in New Orleans, who feels an overwhelming sense of emptiness despite his material success. Binks' search for meaning is portrayed against the backdrop of Catholicism and Stoicism, both of which fail to provide him with a sense of purpose. Holiday finds this exploration of inadequacy in traditional beliefs particularly compelling.
Ryan Holiday emphasizes the novel's role as a 'diagnostic novel,' one that examines existential crises and the search for purpose through its characters, including Binks and his stepcousin Kate. Kate's struggles with existential emptiness and mental illness also highlight the novel's themes of distraction and unfulfillment.
Holiday critiques the modern liberal society's failure to provide meaning, despite its sophistication, freedom, and abundance. This aligns with Percy's depiction of Binks' quest for meaning amidst the superficiality of postwar New Orleans.
In the podcast, Holiday also discusses how reading serves as a conversation with the dead, an idea rooted in Stoic philosophy. He criticizes speed reading, advocating instead for a more deliberate and reflective engagement with texts.
Ryan Holiday's bookstore, The Painted Porch, in Bastrop, Texas, only stocks books that he and his wife have personally read and loved, including 'The Moviegoer.' This reflects his belief in cherishing the reading experience and the power of books to offer profound insights and connections across time.
Key Insights
- 'The Moviegoer' by Walker Percy is considered a 'diagnostic novel' that examines existential crises and the search for meaning through its characters, including a Korean War veteran and stockbroker named Binks who struggles with emptiness despite material success.
- Ryan Holiday's bookstore, The Painted Porch in Bastrop, Texas, stocks only books that he and his wife have personally read and loved, reflecting his belief in the importance of a deliberate and reflective reading experience.
- The novel 'The Moviegoer' explores the inadequacy of traditional beliefs such as Catholicism and Stoicism in providing a sense of purpose, as demonstrated by the protagonist Binks and his stepcousin Kate, who face existential emptiness and mental illness.
- Reading is portrayed as a conversation with the dead, an idea rooted in Stoic philosophy, and Ryan Holiday criticizes speed reading in favor of a more deliberate engagement with texts.