Re: Pretty mouth and green my eyes...
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Fri, 12 Dec 1997 01:39:59 -0500
> I just reread "Pretty mouth and green my eyes" recently (while
> procrastinating studying for final exams), for the first time in years I
> think. I'd forgotten how much this story mystifies me. Forgive me if
> this is a completely inane question, but what exactly is going on at the
> end?? I know most of the Nine Stories have a certain mystery about them,
> and that there's a beauty in leaving that mystery intact, not exposing it
> to the glare of operating-table lights. But this one story drives me
> nuts. How can the wife have come home, when I always assumed she was the
> woman in bed beside Lee?? Did I just completely misread the story?
No, you read it accurately, I think. His wife was in the bed, and he was
calling to save face, which of course made him more a creature of pathos
than before.
> On another, unrelated note - Tim asked for connections anyone had to
> offer between Salinger characters and other fiction... I've always
> thought of _Moon Palace_ by Paul Auster as an amazing mix of Catcher in
> the Rye (albeit with a slightly older main character) and Zen and the Art
> of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's a stunning book. I think I mentioned
> this one on the list before, but that was months ago, so I figured it
> couldn't hurt to mention it again. If I was more awake, I'd offer some
> thoughts on why these books all seem connected, but my brain is way too
> far gone to be able to do that. If anyone else has read them, please jump
> in and say something about them!
I read Zen... a long time ago, thinking in some way that it might be a book
in which I'd find Salinger-ish echos, but I didn't find that. I liked what
I found, but it wasn't along the lines of Salinger.
Moon Palace, on the other hand, I love. It's so haunting, and the delicate
overlaps in the narrative, and the general state of Marco are endearing and
frightening. Holden shows some of that, but in the end, if he had to, he
could just go home, albeit to face the music from his parents. Marco in
Moon Palace had nothing except his books, and as they dwindled, so did he
and his connection to the (rational) world.
--tim