Although Walker Percy's The Message in the Bottle is about "How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other" it's so much more than that. As a collection of essays, the books covers a variety of topics, all of which relate back somehow to the current dilemmas facing society. In "The Delta Factory" Percy lays out the overarching discussion of his subsequent essays. Why is the modern man so unhappy in light of all the progress of which he's the beneficiary?
Percy proceeds to explore individualism, war, and identity from a plethora of angles. "The Loss of the Creature" offers an explanation for the loneliness. In such a vast, largely automated world people are experiencing a loss of their sensation as humans. They feel like statistics instead of real people. This prompts several lengthy discussions of individualism and self-expression along many topics, the gist of which is that Percy believes the greater cultural emphasis upon personal satisfaction and pleasure remain in conflict with traditional conceptions of life's purpose. When one must make one's own meaning, the small matters seem immensely important.
Another intriguing function of Percy's essays is the reconciliation of religious tradition with modern society. He traces Judeo-Christian tradition throughout history, not as a critic or ambassador, but for the purpose of interpreting how societies have been formed. Basically, "Notes for a Novel About the End of the World" explores how a departure from humanity's longstanding conception of life and death has resulted in a sort of absent existence in which people feel lingering sensations of how things used to be without ever knowing what actually used to be. Again, Percy is not an advocate for religion, but he sees this shift into rationalism as a symptom of the disquiet pervading modern society.
