Subject: Re: Glass Yogis
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Apr 14 2000 - 04:23:57 EDT
'... Scottie, would it be rude to express an interest
in an answer to my question to you? ...'
... the lead weights thump up against the roof
of the skull, the eyes snap open & the heart
threatens to burst out of the chest. Quick, quick!
Oh Jesus, quick. Sit up. Straighten the tie.
SMILE. We're for it this time, surely.
What the hell was the question? Yes, here
it is, this is it. Oh thank you, God ...
'Well, actually sir, that was only one of my
little jokes. Jolly silly of me, sir ...'
My interest in abstract thought was always
pretty lukewarm & barely survived into my
twenties. The world closed in after that &
the only questions that have held my attention
since then have been such as: what feeding regime
might stop the cat vomiting on the carpet in
the morning, just how fast can one dribble
the oil when making mayonnaise, how many
Pkw Mk IVs did they have for the drive to
the sea in 1940. And so on.
Nor am I much of a key man. The truths about
people seem not to be found behind locked doors
or in sealed boxes - though as a young shrink I liked
to think so. They appear to me rather to emerge
like crystals gradually & with many, many facets.
My inattention at the back of the class during much
of the recent discussion of Hapworth is mainly because
I haven't read it. But I also find the attempt to make
a consistent whole of the various stories misjudged.
When Picasso tries to capture the reality of a woman
weeping he paints several pictures. The subject may be
the same - his 'Glass family' of the period - but many
of the components in the different pictures will be
'inconsistent' with each other.
Why nail down Salinger to coherence? That seems
to me be no more than obsessional oneupmanship.
Scottie B.
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