Re: Muriel in S:AI
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Mon, 15 Dec 1997 23:16:15 -0500
> for subsequent publication. It never really fit in with my idea of Muriel.
> If anything, it sounds like something her mother would tell her to do, in
> order to protect her financial interest in the poems. What does everyone
> else think?
It is out of character, I always thought. But:
> P.S. I've also always thought that it was a handy device Salinger used
> that allows him to talk them up, so to speak, without having to actually
> produce these world-class poems. Maybe he didn't trust himself to not
> disappoint?
It was a problem John Irving faced in The World According to Garp. In
order to make Garp a credible fiction writer, Irving had to write a "Garp"
story, which he did, and it appears in the book as "The Pension
Grillparzer."
I've always thought it was a convenient out for Salinger; it avoids
ridicule and it preserves a sense of mystery about Seymour and his poetry.
--tim