Subject: Re: A play about Seymour
From: Valérie Aron (kate.beown@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Tue Jan 22 2002 - 06:38:25 GMT
Hi,
I'm back from dinner...
My last words in my previous message were: To justify his marriage with a such commonplace woman,
Seymour explains it was a kind of scientific experience, a kind of self-improvement about human nature.
Well, I was wrong. I looked a little closer at the play, and actually, that's Zooey's opinion, not Seymour's one.
And although this theory about 'real-life experimentation' is interesting (but cruel), I think there is an other
point to go into: I think Seymour needed Muriel, needed her in the most functional and utilitarian meaning of
this verb.
In the play, Seymour despises all his brothers and sisters, as if being a precocious child was the phoniest
thing ever (" Am I a normal person, I mean, am I psychologically normal?", he asks again and again to his
shrink, just before shouting himself). But he sticks up with his dad when Zooey says that his old father is just
a drunkard, Seymour replies violently: "Shut your trap, bloody idiot. He's a real man." (he swears a lot in the
play). Same thing with Muriel, but a bit less obvious: Zooey tells him: "..you pretend:"you know, women and I,
it's just nothing, you know, I don't feel things the same way than you people...", but you choose the most
common wife, like the lowest Yankee. I know you 're supposed to be the guy who carries out experiments,
who looks at the world with a special pair of eyes, and you're waiting for us to say: "wow, see how strangely
he looks at the world". But you just catch a regular woman, like any middle-class American, take a little
home, and do your experiment in your little home with your common wife...". And so on. I guess Seymour
agrees with the idea that Muriel is commonplace, but he never says nothing totally despiteful about her: he
attacks her, but never achieved his complaint about her, because he just doesnt dare to hurt her for good.
To sum up, I think he got a kind of respect for people like Muriel or the dad, because they don't pretend to
be different than other people, because they were capable of living. Of course, they haven't prevent Seymour
from shouting himself, but, for a while, they 've been a safeguard to him. Muriel, to the Glass Family: " I
mean, the Redhead, he could have been one of these old tramps who ask for 2 bucks, and who inspire pity,
couldn't he?? I think so. But I was there, to prevent him from falling."
Valérie
PS: I made a mistake: the author is Bernard-Marie Koltès, not Pierre-Marie. The play has been written in
1977, but first published in 1995, after the death of the author. I don't know whethet this play has been
translated in English. You can find a little bio in English here: http://www.7stages.w1.com/dog.html#bio
21/01/02 21:45:44, Valérie Aron <kate.beown@wanadoo.fr> a écrit:
>Thanks, Scottie, for calling my lack of self-esteem "faux modesty". It's weird, but I understand it as a
>compliment.
>Let's go about the play. The title is 'Sallinger', with 2 l. In the book, the author refers to Seymour as "the
>red-haired guy". Of course, he's dead, but sometimes the characters just speak with his fantom, or his
>soul, whatever you call it.
>I haven't read Franny and Zooey, or Seymour an Introduction for years, I confess, and Hapworth is waiting
>for me in my cupboard , so I have just a little idea about how Seymour is supposed to look like, to act, to
>think, but the way the author of the play describes him surprised me, because he was very different from
>this 'little idea about Seymour' that I had. But maybe you will disagree. Anyway, in the book, Seymour is
>the most awful person ever ('awful'? sorry for my very primitive vernacular, Scottie.): he's very sarcastic,
>but without the tenderness of Holden, and obviously despises his whole family, especially his mother (he
>calls her 'the apron'). But he has a kind of respect for his dad; besides, the father is the only reasonable
>character in the play. Lethargic and reasonable.
> To justify his marriage with a such 'commonplace' woman, Seymour explains it was an experience.
> And...my mummy is calling me for dinner (chicken cooked in white wine, martini rosso, and fresh cream:
>Seymour can't compete with that.)
> I will end with this red-haired Seymour tomorrow.
> Regards, and Guten Appetit.
>
> Valérie Aron
>
>
>20/01/02 18:55:54, "Scottie Bowman" <rbowman@indigo.ie> a écrit:
>
>>
>> Valerie,
>>
>> Proceed.
>>
>> And stop this faux modesty by someone whose English
>> puts most poissons-à-banane to shame.
>>
>> Scottie B.
>>
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