RE: Food

         
Interesting, Olives traditionally have been used to make anointing oil for
prophets and for healing and it is used as lamp oil and as a symbol for the
Holy Spirit in parables. It is what some virgins lack and some have in that
parable of the returning bridegroom. Olive trees have been used allot along
these lines and many Jews believe that the Olive tree is a symbol for the
nation and people of Israel or at least Judah. Olive trees are usually
associated with grafting in live wood and pruning off dead wood. This goes
beyond food in the day to day sense but if you remember after Jesus fasted
for 40 days one of the first temptations was food but his reply was not a
condemnation of food but its insufficiency. Some mystics immolate the body
with starvation but the most striking holy men were deeply involved with
food like Elijah being fed by crows. the feeding of the 5000, and of course
manna. If you remember the Temple ordinances, portions of the sacrifices
offered to God were given to the priests as their food allotment. Now there
are abuses in appeals to its sufficiency and to its valuelessness but it is
significant in that food reminds us daily of our external dependence on
things to live. It may be a sort of chain or manacle but it is one that we
are unable to function without and maybe to those who can it becomes
jewelry, adornments, pleasure in proportion. A pig that shuns food for
other things dies and the pig that gorges dies, no absurdity but design
boundaries, proportion.
 
Daniel
 
 
         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

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Thu Jun 5 11:00:24 2003