Subject: Touch
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliabaader@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jun 13 2001 - 13:36:15 GMT
--- Suzanne Morine <suzannem@dimensional.com> wrote:
> Thinking of that "Just don't" moment in the book and the other moments
> Malcolm mentioned, I felt that she was saying that Bessie was risking
> openness, kindness, letting her son know that something struck her
> about him, touching him. Malcolm quotes late in the article that
> one of the scariest things to do is kindness.
Ah, but this is one of the quibbles I had with what she had to say.
Bestowing kindness is not difficult at all. *Accepting* kindness is
what's difficult. And Zooey, Holden, and Sybil cannot accept it.
Accepting someone's touch, their kindness, implies a willingness to live
within their world, not apart from it as the untouched so often do.
Yes, I understand that having kindness rejected might be a little scary,
but it's nothing in comparison to admitting that you need it. That you
need someone other than yourself.
Look at Sybil and her foot. We catch a glimpse of the kind of mothering
that she gets when her mother tells her to "run and play, Pussy" while
she goes up to the hotel to have a Martini with a friend so that they
can continue to dissect just HOW that handkerchief was tied. A very
Muriel-like mother, don't you think? If Sybil's mother is Muriel-like
and Sybil's way of interacting with the world is unacceptable to her
mother, she begins to assume the air of Seymour's döppelganger. Crazy
eager for affection but unwilling or perhaps unable to accept it.
Seymour kisses her foot, she says "Hey," and runs away, without regret.
Seymour then goes upstairs and ends it. But his leavetaking is not
without regret, for he takes one last look.
Holden. Holden's in a similar situation, where he's got an older person
wanting to touch him, heal him perhaps with that touch. But he wakes up
and sees Mr. Antolini and rather than admit that he's worthy of being
loved, takes off and deems Antolini a pervert. The Catcher in the Rye
cannot be caught, you see.
And Zooey. Zooey's situation is similar, as he's having difficulty
accepting the touch, but there's a major difference: Zooey doesn't
leave. Zooey tells her to back off, but he doesn't leave. And then he
accepts the responsibility that Bessie's love puts on him.
Yes, there's similarities in each of these situations, but no, I don't
think that it's the same. I think Zooey stands apart. He's the most
grown-up of all Salinger's characters, for all his joking and wit.
So.
Regards,
Cecilia.
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Tue Jul 24 2001 - 09:20:44 GMT