Re: Thoughts on Muriel and Impossibility

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Mon, 08 Dec 1997 15:19:22 -0800 

> Muriel (the name of a lovely Tom Waits song, by the way, that turns out to
> be about the enchanting woman whose face is on the cigar band)...

Recently, Peggy mentioned Horwitz, the cab driver.  Somehow, this remark
made me imagine Tom Waits in the role.  Driving with his head turned to the
back seat, grumbling at Holden, not unlike his role in "Down by Law."

> I don't know how this happens.  I don't know why it happens so often in the
> most impossible of ways between the unlikeliest of people.  But it does.
> It might have even happened to you once or twice.
>
> Has it?

I've seen it.  I've lived it.  I know exactly the feeling in the pit of the
stomach when the realization hits.  And the terrifying thing is that we
make our mistakes either willfully blind or in complete, blissful
ignorance.  I have a friend who has gone through this; he and I have
compared notes for years, trying to understand the dynamics.  We still
don't understand it any better than we did at the beginning.

I have a concert recording of Bruce Springsteen in Paris, in which he
introduces a song by saying, "I've been in the same relationship for the
last 30 years.  It's just been with a lot of different women."  Somewhere
in that comment is a kernel I think you've touched on.

And I can't help thinking of BooBoo's remark in "Raise High the Roof Beam,"
in which she sums up Muriel and her family in the letter to Buddy.  I
notice that in all the Glass stories, years after the suicide, the various
family members talk about Seymour, but they never mention Seymour as
married man, or mention Muriel, or say anything that gives us an idea of
whether they showed approval or disapproval after the marriage.  In fact,
one nearly gets the idea that Seymour vanished after his marriage, only to
reappear with the pull of the trigger on his vacation.  Only Buddy alludes
to Muriel in present time, when he indicates that she refuses to allow
Seymour's poems to be published, and that this is what prevents him from
showing us Seymour's work.  (I've often wondered how he managed to publish
Seymour's diary entries and verbatim letters, if he is prevented from
publishing the poetry.)

But that is drifting off-topic, as usual.  ("Digression!")  This message
made me think carefully, very carefully, before I could post a reply.

--tim