RE: Soft Boiled

Soft Boiled, as well as most of his early war stories, to me, are the equivalent of Bruce Springsteen or Alan Jackson singing songs about Sept. 11. Not what the writer would write about if he had a trillion dollars.

>>> esme4@yahoo.com 06/04/03 08:55AM >>>
Hi,

I'm Esme coming in from lurker mode to say a few
things about this story but I'm not going to say much
else for now if you don't mind. My offline life at the
moment is a bit overwhelming and so is the rain...so
here I am, wet hat in hand, letting a few crazy drops
fall on the floor.

I think Tina nails the story better than any hammer
could! The plot and story are sentimental, but
considering the time (April 1944) and the slick
publishing context of the Saturday Evening Post, the
plotting may not indicate Salinger's need for more
craft as much as reflecting a dominant part of the
heart of culture at the time. However, contrary to my
own point about time and place, my reading of the plot
is not all about Burke the kind hero so much as seeing
Salinger's nod to women in the end. Sure, having a
"Juanita" is piggish, but beneath the sexist veneer I
sense Salinger suggesting that Juanita's female
consciousness takes the story in more insightfully
than the narrator has lived it. I am not ready to
accept Joyce Maynard's hate as fact...not with a name
like mine!

Another drop of rain left for others to ignore or mop
away from this messy floor of thoughts is this: my
absolute favorite line in the story is "He was a real
ugly guy, and real ugly guys don't never look very
young or very old." My uncle is pretty ugly and he's
very crazy and fun to visit. He's far away and I don't
see him often, but each time I see something else
about him I like very much. I guess I imagined Burke
pretty clearly as my uncle except my uncle is never
that mature or heroic. I always thought my uncle was
Dad's kid brother and I was recently shocked to learn
this marvelous man is ten years older than my
handsome, gray-haired father. My father refused to
accept my shock and accused me of stepping on him for
the zillionth time. My dad and his brother are not
exactly Buddy and Seymour, ya know.

Esme

PS: Please keep a lid on that "love and squalor"
stuff...I don't need more dirty old men in my life.

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Received on Wed Jun 4 12:00:10 2003