"The Thanatos Syndrome"

Have you read Walker Percy's 1987 novel, "The Thanatos Syndrome"?  You should!  I admit it -- I read a bunch of Percy novels in law school, because I was told by a super-smart Catholic that, well, I should.  I don't think I really appreciated them.  So, I've been re-reading them.  (I didn't appreciate, for one thing, how funny -- while still heavy -- they are.) 

In Thanatos, the protagonist, Dr. Thomas More has an old acquaintance named Fr. Smith who gets in some choice, if hard to hear, observations about modern science.  (Amy Welborn has a short-and-sweet review, here.  See also this, in First Things, from 16 years ago.)  Remember, he warns, "tenderness leads to the gas chamber."