In “The Moviegoer” by Walker Percy, chapter 9 starts with the passage ” For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead.
It happens when I speak to people. in the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can. At such times it seems that the conversation is spoken by automatons who have no choice in what they say.”
I believe that while morbid, Binx is comparing the monotony of the routine small talk and the everydayness of life to being dead. That there should be an excitement in living, that he struggles to find when having everyday conversations with people, and maybe struggles to connect and empathize with them.
This passage stood out to me as well. It made me feel that Binx is acting slightly pretentious, like other people and other people’s concerns aren’t important to him. He seems to be judging them for their mediocrity, as if they are beneath him. To equate their everydayness to death is presumptuous, because he is the one projecting that onto them. In all likelihood, these people are content and even happy with their lives, so who is he to say they are dead?
I think you are definitely right that Binx feeling as though everyone is dead and that talking to people is as good as being dead or talking to lifeless robots is because he finds little excitement or interest in everyday conversations. From close to the start of the book I got the impression that Binx talked to a lot of people but did not really care about the conversations that were being had or find them at all interesting. I think you are also right that it is another way of expressing his struggle to connect with others.