Re: Bananafish Bones

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On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, citycabn wrote:

> Recently I reread "APDFB."  I won't wade into the quagmire of why Seymour
> committed suicide.  But I did notice:
> 
> In "Zooey" we learn that Seymour died on 3/18/48.  Yet "APDFB" was published
> on 1/31/48.
> 
> In "RHTRBC" we learn that Muriel and Seymour met when Seymour was stationed
> at Fort Monmouth in the winter of 1941, and that they eloped in June of
> 1942.  In "APDFB" Muriel says, "We couldn't get the room we had before the
> war."  A statement which surely implies they were married before the war,
> since Muriel is openly saying this  to her mother.
> 
> In "SAI" Buddy tells us "on the afternoon of his suicide, Seymour  wrote a
> straight, classical-style haiku on the desk blotter  in his hotel room."  In
> APDFB, after Seymour's return to Room 507, there is no mention of him
> writing a poem.

  You also must remember that Buddy also says in SAI that APDFB is a story
that Buddy wrote.  He also claims that he more the character in the story
than the real Seymore is.  Buddy in no way implies that what happened in
APDFB is fact.  In fact, this is true for all of the Glass stories except
maybe SAI and Hapworth.  None of them Happened in the Glass world.  All of
them were concotions of Buddy's.  Strange.

> 
> Can anyone make some sense out of this snippet of dialogue in APDFB?
> 
> Muriel's Mother:  How's your ballerina?
> Muriel:     It's too long.

I vaguely remember this, and I don't have the source in front of me.  I
believe Muriel is responding to something earlier in the conversation, as
in she's preoccupied.  It's how JDS is showing real conversation. 

-j

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