Subject: Re: Touch
From: Suzanne Morine (suzannem@dimensional.com)
Date: Wed Jun 13 2001 - 23:05:35 GMT
At 10:36 AM 6/13/2001 -0700, Cecilia Baader wrote:
>--- 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.
In your opinion.
>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 but I'd say kindess is even harder for "the untouched," or the people
among them who are behind battle worn defenses of acting cool. Holden's
phonies come to mind. They aren't going to risk revealing a kindness.
>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.
Again, in your opinion. For me, the latter is automatic.
>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
very easy to admit the need: eager..
>but unwilling or perhaps unable to accept it.
Well, when the moment comes, yup. Hard, I agree.
>Seymour kisses her foot, she says "Hey," and runs away, without regret.
Well, maybe this is the difference we have. That moment seems impulsive,
not really a choice, not a risk taken. He just did it. I can agree that was
very easy, though I think being able to do that implies a sort of
prerequisite risk taking, strength, and valuing people. I can see, too that
Antolini (Antoli!), drunk out of his mind, could have been even more
impulsive. Bessie.. I don't want to read the book again, sorry to say.
Suzanne
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