> Salinger's > characters - at least in the later stories, which are > the ones I find especially unpersuasive - are as likely > to become hysterical over the spriritual implications > of monogrammed luggage as over their own eventual > dissolution. Hm, I can't seem to recall where this hysteria over monogrammed luggage takes place (I don't have the books with me), but think I see your point. I tend to think of this kind of "frivolous" outbursts as symptoms of a larger, more deepgoing state of spiritual distress, though. In that context I hesitate to dismiss them so easily. > They remind me of that mythical bird that flies > round & round in ever decreasing circles until it > disappears up its own etc. That's a priceless picture, and very much to the point. In a sense, the Glasses are examining their own lives so intently that they render themselves incapable of living them. (As perhaps Elizabeth's dad would say.) I see this as an extreme result of man's paradoxical nature, being a rational, irrational creature. And, for me at least, this is an interesting theme. /Sam