Re: Quick responses on Muriel...

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Tue, 09 Dec 1997 20:56:45 -0800 

To everyone in general: I was surprised that this mail didn't provoke a
greater response, because it seemed to me as if it touched a lot of raw
nerves.  I know that I cringed or squirmed a little bit in various places.

John: I sure didn't interpret your comments as applicable to all
relationships, though I'm sure there were one or two elements I recognized
there, in myself or in some of my friends.

And when it happens, it can be, as you said, shattering.

> Regarding the text's attitude towards Muriel...  Looking back at the story
> I agree that laughter may be too strong a characterization (although I'm
> not convinced that Muriel is held up as some sort of balancing force to the
> Glass' ethereality -- that would seem to me too neat for the amibiguity I
> find in the story -- also it seems necessary in such a discussion to
> consider Sybil and her innocence within this context of who's who...).
> Perhaps it's a question of differences and of surfaces and depths and its
> clear at least in spots which of all these "sides" offers the more
> sensitive reaction to the harshness of the world.

I've always been troubled by Muriel (as many of my posts have said in the
past), but last week I was working on a project that required me to
literally consider the "Perfect Day" story word by word, and in doing so, I
realized that Muriel emerges as a more complex character than I ever gave
her credit for being.  (And cheers for the subscriber who recently lauded
Muriel.)  She is a certain type of woman I've known in the past.  Initially
her interests seemed silly to me, but in rereading the text so closely, I
came to a better appreciation of her.  (I still won't let go of the
question about what happened in the years between their wedding and their
sojourn to Florida.  I can't imagine what that relationship must have been
like.)

> But I will accept that
> at least Muriel giggles when she tells her mother what Seymour calls her,
> as if, at least to some degree, she gets and appreciates the joke (though
> obviously not completely).

Yes -- enough to stew in it, but probably not to see the irony.

> Meanwhile I heard this just a moment ago on the TV:
>
> "If you have to convince the heart, then it's not...   Convinced, that is."
>
> --Jerry Springer during his "Final Thoughts" on a show with at least five
> separate fights.
>
> Question: which Salinger character would be most likely to be a guest on
> "Jerry?"

Oh, dear ... I'm afraid I'm going to have to reveal my ignorance of TV
again.  Who is "Jerry"?  What kind of show does he host that consists of
"five separate fights"?  It sounds like the dinner table at which I grew up.

--tim