SV: Salinger's world
Sam Sundberg (stray@well.com)
Thu, 12 Aug 1999 03:29:19 +0200
> 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