Subject: Re: the leper with the most fingers
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliabaader@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Feb 12 2001 - 12:06:15 GMT
--- Jive Monkey <monkey_jive@hotmail.com> wrote:
> In "Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters" Seymour states in his journal
> that "apparently there is something wrong with" him as he hasn't
> seduced Muriel. So, all ye oracles of wisdom, was there? The quick
> answer is no . . .
Actually, the quick answer is yes. Because if you add to that the
Bananafish facts that Seymour and Muriel are on their second honeymoon
and they've taken a room with two beds and Muriel is reading a magazine
with "Sex is fun ... or hell" emblazoned on the front, there's
definitely a problem on the old Seymour side. Muriel certainly wants to
do something about it.
What the problem is, we don't know, but we can guess. No, I wouldn't
say that he's gay or a pederast or anything like that. Instead, I'd
call him a man in the midst of a spiritual crisis.
> on that info, but a girl I know recently stated ... that "if a guy
> were around a girl he thought he might like and didn't try something,
> then there'd be something wrong."
As a generalization, not a bad one. In my (ahem) experience, it doesn't
take very long, and if it does, a girl typically cuts her losses and
looks around for someone who obviously is. That man gets neatly slotted
into the "friend" category, and very rarely does he break out. But the
religious man never fits that mold, and you cannot generalize about him.
(However, all that really means is that he just takes a little longer.
A man who's interested is a man who's interested is a man who's
interested.)
So.
To bring this back to Seymour, I don't think that he was overly
interested in Muriel sexually. He'd just decided on a marriage path,
and she fit his idea of a perfect Wife. Perhaps he thought she'd save
him with her über-normalcy. However, he wasn't able to break out of his
former path, his royal/raja path, and the marriage experiment didn't
work. (More than a year ago, I posted a message on the various paths to
enlightenment under the subject "The Royal Path" if you're unfamiliar
with these terms. I'm pretty sure you can find it in an archive
search.)
I read a review in The New Yorker not too long ago for a series of books
by a priest (I've forgotten his name). The reviewer spend a large
amount of time discussing how finely written these books were, how deep
their themes despite their comic appeal. But, he said, they fail in any
real meaningful manner because their priest protagonists never discuss,
or think about sex if they can help it. Not normal, said the reviewer,
priest or not. I don't know about that, though. I think there's a
distinct asexual type in the world for whom sex fails to have any real
meaning. A rare sort indeed, but he exists. I think Seymour is that
kind of man.
Regards,
Cecilia.
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