Re: Mr. Antolini
Brendan McKennedy (the.tourist@mailexcite.com)
Thu, 04 Dec 1997 07:55:42 -0700
I'm sorry I'm driving this into the ground, but I refuse to admit that Salinger's
characters are simply innocent admirers of the silliness of childhood.
I've been thinking about it a lot since I brought it up...I had originally thought
that Salinger himself was idealizing children, and endorsing the idealized affection
that his characters express...
But looking closer, I think he was exploring the bad wiring, if you will, in his
character's heads, that lead them to illness enough to fall in love with these children.
The children themselves are certainly not innocent people--Salinger never once wants
us to believe that. In fact, in Teddy, Salinger tells us via Reincarnation that
children are as corrupted (it's the wrong word, but I can't think of a better one
right now) as adults.
Remember Teddy's sister? And Ramona is no virgin mind herself, getting her invisible
friend Runned Over...
My point is, I don't think Salinger idealized children like his characters did...rather,
I think he was exploring the mental processes that lead to that idealization.
I was also thinking about the middle ground between sexual abuse and parental love.
I think when an adult falls in love with a child, falls in between those two extremes,
the affection in itself is not bad, although that sort of idealization comes from
a co-dependent environment...
The problem starts when adults try to express that love. The best way humans know
to express love is physically--and while it may appear innocent to the adult, any
sexualization of children, as we know, is abuse.
Of course Antolini was left ambiguous purposefully...I don't deny that for a moment.
But I also believe that Salinger had a very deliberate reason for everything he
did--and that he understood his characters and their motives--ever the minor characters
better than most writers understand their main characters.
Whether or not we are supposed to Find Out Exactly What Salinger Meant, I believe
he meant Something in particular, and it is important to me to discover What that
is.
Brendan
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