Subject: RE: Re: Touch
From: zazie (zazie@raketnet.nl)
Date: Mon Jun 18 2001 - 05:35:17 GMT
i fully agree with you, ringo. it happened once to me, that an older woman
wanted to pet me. i was 15 at the time and i didn't like it at all.
i guess for boys it's even more awkward.
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Please don't visit my crappy homepage
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--------------------Origineel bericht--------------------
From: "Jive Monkey" <monkey_jive@hotmail.com>
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Re: Touch
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 23:28:43 -0700
I'm going to throw in my plugged nickel (before the bulk of the
conversation
goes off on one of our little tangents again...)-
Seymour and Sybil- She's a little girl, tomboy type (I think). Of course
she wouldn't want someone to kiss her foot, especially not some guy she
barely knows like See More Glass. It's too intimate, makes her
uncomfortable. And HIS thing for feet, which I have mentioned here
before,
is probably a fetish (I still don't think it was a coincidence that Buddy
told the wedding entourage that Seymour had been a "chiropodist"), at least
a minor one.
Holden- That guy was PETTING him. Holden was awoken in a strange place by
some guy he didn't know very well, petting him. I think I would have
freaked out too, especially at that age.
Zooey- He's in the bathroom, his personal time, and Bessie comes in with
her
"butt filled kimono." I think we all would rather be alone in the
bathroom,
and Zooey expresses this in various ways. Having a conversation in the
bathroom is a sign of intimacy that, it would seem, most mother-son duos
don't have. Too, he might just be a little tired of Bessie, after living
with her for 24 years.
Ringo
From: Cecilia Baader <ceciliabaader@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Touch
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 10:36:15 -0700 (PDT)
--- 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.
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