Re: Quick responses on Muriel...
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Thu, 18 Dec 1997 08:14:06 -0500
Brendan McKennedy said:
> I'd be very interested what your careful reading of "Bananafish" revealed
>to you
> about Muriel. If you could go into that in a little more detail, I'd
>greatly appreciate it.
Characters like Muriel are not unknown to me in life. Although I am not of
their world, I am in it often. My impression of Muriel has always been of
her surface characteristics, the Saks/Bonwit's/fingernails drying/calfskin
luggage/"You should see what sits next to us in the dining room. ... They
looked like they drove down in a truck."/Madison Avenue environment. It's
*familiar* to me, though that world is not anything I like, or one I care
to spend much time in.
However, I was struck by Muriel's sense of humor -- and the author's, too,
as he shifts gears from Topic A to Topic B to Topic C, apparently
willy-nilly, but with some goal apparent.
What he achieves is a richer characterization than what at first glance
seems to be a of a merely pampered, stereotyped woman. She handles her
mother deftly; the telephone dialogue is written with wonderful timing
(just try reading it aloud with two people who have practiced the voices a
bit) and infinite appreciation for a good laugh; and you can see how Muriel
is still involved with her mother emotionally, yet tries to put physical
and psychic distance between them -- which, in the end, she doesn't seem to
achieve. The telephone enables Mrs. Fedder to follow her daughter wherever
she goes. One can only imagine this milieu transformed into today's world,
where Mrs. Fedder would have a cellular phone and could call five times a
day!
So, what I have always considered (and still consider) not quite my world
is more a place with many more flaws and a higher tolerance for -- and
sense of amusement about -- meddling mothers than I had previously
remembered. And Muriel, a product of it, reflects those qualities.
Either that's how I read Muriel, or I have to get out of town more often.
<*grin*> Most likely the latter.
--tim o'connor (grown, aged, and bottled in NYC)