Re: Moon Palace

Rebecca McCallum (remc@uhura.cc.rochester.edu)
Fri, 12 Dec 1997 19:10:56 -0500 (EST)

> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 01:39:59 -0500
> From: Tim O'Connor <tim@roughdraft.org>
> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> Subject: Re: Pretty mouth and green my eyes...
> Message-ID: <v03110701b0b68b973ba0@roughdraft.org>
> 
> 
> 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.  >


Actually, I agree with you here.  I see similarities between Moon Palace
and CITR, and between Moon Palace and Zen and the Art..  but not between
CITR and Zen and..  I read Zen and the Art a long time ago and remember
enjoying it, but unlike Salinger books and Moon Palace (and others),
it's not been a book I've gone back to reread.  But I do remember seeing
similarities in Moon Palace in the cross-country quest and in the
ambiguous father figure. 


> 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.
> 

How true.  It's a slow descent that's both frightening and incredibly
fascinating at the same time. 

- Rebecca