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.