Subject: Re: The Fourth Man
From: Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Date: Fri Mar 24 2000 - 08:35:57 EST
At 7:42 AM +0000 on 3/24/2000, you wrote:
> Re-reading Seymour last week, the question of
> the fourth bachelor immediately suggested itself
> as a good way for me to establish my credentials as
> a Serious Salinger Scholar.
Ah, I'm glad that I wasn't the only one to stumble on this!
> As you point out, the obvious candidate can only
> be seen as such if you assume all his work on earth
> had been completed before that last week when
> he finally put on the ring.
That or it could be the case that the family sees him as "frozen" in
time and place, pre-Muriel. He may be married and vacationing and
suicidal, but (I'm surmising) that is only THAT Seymour, he who does
not count as the real Seymour. If the family views him as their
saint, their blue-striped unicorn, this could account for the
phrasing.
> The only other possibility seemed to me to be
> the Nazarene.
Now, there's something I never thought about. With all the "it's
Christ himself, Buddy" of earlier sorties (that's not a typo), Jesus
Christ, or Seymour as him, could be the fourth man.
I think your credentials are well-established here already!
--tim
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