Food

I agree, there is definitely something interesting with food in Salinger. One thing which always pops up is olives

- Franny eats nothing in the whole meal with Lane but the olive from his martini, which she asks for even though she doesn't really want it, then is obliged to eat it 'with apparent relish'

- Sybil has a thing about olives in Bananafish. Again, I think she gets a martini olive, this time from her mother's martini. She also talks about olives with Seymour "Do you like olives? DO you like to chew candles?" and he replies "Who doesn't?"

- In one of the early pre-Catcher stories, which tells the bit of the story where Holden goes back home and talks with Phoebe, there is also a baby sister, Viola, who has a thing about olives.

I'm not sure why olives should be this significant, maybe it is partly a class thing because all the characters are the kind of people who would drink martinis as a regular thing and have lots of cocktail olives. Also, i guess, they are not really very nourishing, even so, the olive in Franny is too much for her.

Other foodie things

- Holden doesn't eat much, mainly malted milk and swiss cheese sandwiches. In fact, I'm not sure he ever finshes a meal in the whole book. He comments on the fact that he doesn't eat and has been told he should build himself up

- In Down At the Dinghy, Boo Boo wants to give her son a pickle but they are all gone, the maid seems to take some spiteful pleasure in telling her that they're finished

- I can't really remember well, and don't have a copy of the book with me, but doesn't Esme eat in "For Esme..."? I think there is a reference to her eating in a ladylike way but with gusto, but it's possible I made that up! If it is true, it does fit with an idea that the characters who don't have a problem with eating are the most human.

- Offering food is in several places a way of offering help and love. Bessie's 'sacred chicken soup', Les's tangerine, and the chicken sandwich in 'Just before the war with the Eskimos' (one of my persobal favourites).

- Finally, one of the books is dedicated in 'as nearly as possible, the spirit of Matthew Salinger, aged (=), urging a lunchtime companionto accept a cooling lima bean'.

I'm sure there are more and I definitely think it's worth looking more deeply into this line of thought. It seems to be true that Salinger does not usually describe food in terms of taste, nevetheless it often provides a form of communication . It seems that perhaps the 'food people' and the 'thought people' cannot meet, Bessie, Les and Selina's brother all offer food, Holden wants to pay for the nuns' meal, but they find it difficult to communicate in words, whereas the other characters are so bound up in words they can't accept the loving gesture involved in eating.

Lucy-Ruth x x x

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Received on Thu Jun 5 05:03:55 2003