bath night

Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:58:26 +0100

    Many features in Salinger announce the advanced 
    obsessional neurotic:  the endlessly self-modifying 
    phrases & sentences; the lists of objects slavered over 
    like a miser over his hoarded faeces; the Zen-impregnated 
    demand for renunciation & control; the shuddering 
    away from dirt; the squeamish avoidance of the flesh 
    & all its joys ...

    I could go on all day.

    In view of this, the bathroom is his natural temple: 
    the one room in the house where the primal golden filth 
    can be celebrated in secret & washed away in solemn ritual.

    And of course if I were a Jungian I could also point out 
    the individuating roundness of the mandala-bidet, 
    the Shadow left as a rim round the bath like the skin 
    shed by the enantiodromically self-consuming serpent.

    I'm surprised, in a way, he ever gets out of the bath.

    Scottie B.