Re: With Love and Squalor
Pierrot65@aol.com
Sat, 20 Feb 1999 23:24:19 -0500 (EST)
Jim wrote (re Esme) "She saved him by sending him that watch." I would like to
add what is I'm sure an Eng Lit 101 obvious notion: that the watch is broken:
time is (literally and figuratively) standing still. Esme is forever going to
be that young girl in the cafe. ie., thanks to her example, X knows that not
absolutely everything has to change (change/ growth/ decay being the enemy of
adolescence in a very real sense) (if you'll pardon my asinine assonance). If
we can apply some of Seymour/Holden's likes/desires to X (and I think it's
fair to do so) we know how important that is, that they really, really
intensely dislike change (there are at least a million examples of this in the
canon, and I'm going to settle for naming ... none of them, because my fingers
won't allow me to slow this disastrous train of thought down). I think that
very detail, when you think of Esme & Charles being orphaned, of the idea that
Europe lost a "whole generation of young men" to the First World War (I know,
Esme is in WW2, but I think the same idea can be applied), and you think of
that old idea: 'I want to stop the world from spinning and get off' (the
world, not...nevermind). I think X pretty obviously needs to stop the world
from turning around him, stop time from ticking and just heal. Esme does that
for him. In this way Esme is transcendant -- she exists "outside of time," so
to speak. You could even say the meter of spelling out the "f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s"
is akin to the second hand on a clock, that his being intact sets his
biological clock to ticking again. I think you could call X's battle with
time/change/damage the innermost ring in a set of concentric circles from
which the Holden and Buddy and Seymour and Franny issues of (especially)
damage extend. Add all of this to the great set pieces in the story: the very
tearoom scene, the choir scene preceding it, the great use of Doestevsky's
"Life is Hell" thing, the very aspects of the war that give the story its
meat: add those things to the dexterity with which Salinger changes the
story's moods... I don't know. It just pretty much rocks my world.
I guess I don't understand how you can like "Teddy" but not "Esme." I don't
mean that as criticism at all, not one bit -- I mean I literally don't
understand it. I will say that I think your honesty and courage in saying
something like that after many of us just professed a kind of breathless
admiration for it really serves the betterment of the list. (And I mean
courage in the sense that in this one isolated instance you are like a lamb in
the den of the ... you know ... other lambs with slightly ruffled lambswool
sweaters:) )
If you couldn't tell I meant the above with all due respect for you opinion,
doctor P. Also, I'm very sorry it's so goddamned long.
rick