Subject: Re: and finally....
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Tue May 23 2000 - 09:54:25 GMT
On Tue, May 23, 2000 at 07:29:21AM +0100, Scottie Bowman wrote:
> Seymour doesn't kill himself tactfully & decently
> behind some private sand dune - but on the bed next
> to his wife. With such a close drilling there may not
> have been a very large exit wound, but possibly enough
> to spatter her lightly with a little pink stuff. How better
> to leave her with a lifetime of self-reproach?
Scottie, this is something I've raised a few times (but much more
gently than you do with your unforgettable phrasing!). Regarding
the story "Bananafish," I've asked something along the lines of
"What happens after that gunshot?" Because despite all the action
that has taken place until Seymour's return to the hotel room, this
one move (pulling the trigger) outweighs everything beforehand and
really sets SOMETHING in motion. I suppose I'm just a little bit
obsessive about the survivors, especially that survivor in the hotel
room.
Now, one can invoke the Hemingway theory that you strengthen the
narrative by omitting certain action because if you have written it
"truly" then the reader will know what happened and will be able to
infer it from the rest of the story. ("Out of Season" is one story
EH names in "A Moveable Feast," where he intends us to understand
that the guide commits suicide after taking the couple poaching,
beyond the limits of the official fishing season.) And I suppose
it's arguable that part of the effect of "Bananafish" is in its
surprise ending, its shock, its slap in the face. But still, Muriel
has to go on living, and that, to me, is at least as gripping a plot
line as why this curious young man has blown his head off. (Because
remember, as Scottie also mentioned, that we know nothing about
Seymour's remarkable secret life as a saint.) Scottie made a sly
allusion to Sam Goldwyn's comment that if you want to send a message,
use Western Union, not a movie script; here Seymour has sent quite a
message to his bride and to the people who are left behind. And,
arguably, to us, the readers.
And despite all the later build-up of Seymour as saint, we don't
canonize very many people who (you choose your religious or
secular version) commit the gravest of mortal sins or scatter
their brains across the room.
I have to say, from the sidelines, that I much enjoy seeing this subject
come up again, even if we are "cheating" by stepping outside the bounds
of the frame of the story. But it's how you look at a painting,
outside the frame, and it's how you see a play (outside the proscenium
arch, at least until Brecht shattered that rule), and "Bananafish"
screams out to be read with at least one good foot outside the framework
of the story.
If this were Greek tragedy, there would be at least another act that
shows the aftermath and puts it in context and perhaps has one more
climactic moment. I suppose we can view the remaining Glass stories as
such a following act, with us and the other Glasses trying to make sense
of what Seymour has done. But I can't get out of my mind what it must
be like inside Muriel's head, when she is awakened.
--tim
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