Titel	The Thanatos Syndrome
Labels
ID	9107
Type	publication >> novel
Date	1987

Collection(s)	Religion in the Secular Age
Uri(s)	https://ica.acdh-dev.oeaw.ac.at/entity/9107/
Notes	In Percy's second dystopian novel, he seems to draw on his own experiences visiting Germany as a young student. In the novel, one character who is the director of a questionable medical institute where euthanasia on old people and the abortion of babies with disabilities is performed–practices condemned by the novel's main character Tom More–listens to Strauß in his car, as well as music from "Artist's Life," "Wiener Blut," and "Tales from the Vienna Woods". Another character in the novel recalls his experience of visiting his distant relatives in Nazi Germany and their love of music before eventually being confronted with the horrific consequences of gassed children with mental disabilities. Percy also added a list of some of the most prominent Weimar physicians who were involved in this practice at the end of the novel.
References	Zacharasiewicz, Waldemar. "Critical Perspectives on Self-Sufficing Humanism in Southern Fiction." Religion in the Secular Age. Vienna: Verlag der ÖAW. On Percy's extensive references and use of German heterostereotypes, see Zacharasiewicz, Waldemar “Stereotypes in Walker Percy’s Fiction”, first published in REAL 8 1991/2, and included in Imagology Revisited (321-37).