Re: look away
Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Fri, 18 Jun 1999 16:42:17 -0400
On Fri, Jun 18, 1999 at 07:12:36PM +0100, Scottie Bowman wrote:
> '... His eldest sister (who modestly prefers to be
> identified here as a Tuckahoe homemaker) has
> asked me to describe him as `the blue-eyed Jewish-Irish
> Mohican scout that died in your arms at the roulette
> table at Monte Carlo ...'
> Still. Quite seriously - & trying to stick to my resolution
> to avoid frivolity - I have to ask: am I quite alone in finding
> this kind of thing embarassing? To discover the chap who
> wrote Esme & Holden churning out this contrived, twinkly-eyed,
> archly-smiling rubbish is for me the equivalent of watching
> a former Olympic runner begging a handout for booze
> on skid row.
>
> No one else? Really no one?
I have to confess that I find it charming. But then, I've constructed
(Hannibal Lecter-style) a castle in my brain of the house of Buddy Glass
and its occupant, and I can see him, unshaven, trying to find the right
way of conveying a certain look. And, in the way that dated movie
references work, even though they are dated, this works for me.
Though of course Esme -- well, to steal a line from Bob Dylan, that
story happens on a whole other level. It transcends mere writing
and disappears in its loveliness onto the horizon.
No, I regret to disagree and say that for me, it's "Teddy" that is
the bland and uninteresting narrative. I quite enjoy immersing myself
in a Buddy Glass prose home movie. I love the bobbing and weaving
and feinting and ducking of the later Salinger, which seems so
much more in the control of a writer who knows what he's doing to his
reader, playing with us, daring us to close the book in disgust, knowing
most of us won't do so.
--tim