The Moviegoer

Lately Binx has been wondering if everyone is actually dead. People sound like automatons who are just repeating stock phrases without any choice in the matter. Binx finds it cheering to go to the library to read political periodicals. He doesn’t know whether he’s liberal or conservative, but he finds the groups’ mutual hatred inspiring. In Binx’s eyes, only “haters” seem to be truly living.

Today, as Binx emerges onto the library steps, he finds Nell Lovell. She tells Binx that now that she’s an empty-nester, she’s taking philosophy courses in the mornings, and she and Eddie have been confirmed in their values. She adds that they’ve agreed on a common life-goal: to make a contribution that “[leaves] the world just a little better off.” Binx just nods and listens, discomfited by Nell’s youthful earnestness, which seems merely “dead” to him.