Re: Holden and Jane, final cut

Mattis Fishman (mattis@argos.argoscomp.com)
Mon, 25 Jan 1999 10:12:02 -0500 (EST)

  Tim writes, re. Holden Jane and ghosts of old loves and lives:

> There's even a song by Tom Waits, from his first album, called (if my
> ailing memory serves me) "Martha," about a fellow calling an old flame from
> what is probably a bar, seeing where each of them ended up, and deciding
> something along the lines of:
>
>	Those were the days of roses,
>	poetry and prose,
>	and Martha
>	all I had was you
>	and all you had was me.

  Funny, I myself think of the Moody Blues' song that goes
  "I wonder if you care, I wonder if you think about me, once upon a time,
   in your wildest dreams."

  Now that I write this, I realize the obvious, that one man's pleasant 
  reminiscence of a sweet and transient love affair is another's regret
  at having cavalierly undermined his lover's affection. The widower
  thinks of what he has lost (perhaps while letting the cat bite his
  left hand) or agonizes over the words he didn't say (the cat bites again?),
  and some of us remember a past that never was, etched painfully in
  untouchable daydreams.

  This would explain, I guess, why there are so many songs about this
  phenomenon. If I may pick a favorite, let me mention the Incredible
  String Band's "The First Boy I Ever Loved" (most accessible in
  Judy Collins' verion, though Jackson Browne just recorded it)
  "and you're probably married now, the wife the kids and all, and turned
  into a total female stranger. If I were beside you now, I wouldn't be
  here at all". I think, though, that when I mention the ISB I date myself.

  And further:

> Sure.  Among many things in Holden's universe, the unmade call is
> practically his calling card, and his call to Jane is in a sense his Holy
> Grail.  I have always thought that it was the one holdout he had, the one
> escape, that, in many ways, he didn't really want to achieve.  Because the
> idealized so often fails to meet our expectations, and Jane, as you point
> out, is nothing if not Holden's idealized, pedestal-ized, "don't spoil
> *everything* for me now, Buddy" person.  Don't we all carry at least one in
> our pockets?

  Like the expectations we have when posting our thoughts to bananafish?

  Finally:

>          ... There was a moment of disruption, and the floater abruptly
> disappeared, and the surface of the water returned to a kind of calm, and
> my unknown creature vanished.  I watched for a while, but my hands were
> cold and I had things to do.  I thought of the Loch Ness monster and amused
> myself at the thought that this little town had its own Nessie -- whatever
> it was that I had seen....

  Ah, the perils of the suburbs. After the relative safety of Times Square
  and the New York City subway system, it may take some time to adjust.

  all the best,
  Mattis