Re: Seymour's Death -- "Et tu, Muriel?"

helena kim (helena@apollo.netsoc.tcd.ie)
Fri, 20 Nov 1998 00:45:02 +0000 (GMT) 

On Thu, 19 Nov 1998, Pasha Paterson wrote:

> OK, OK, you're certainly just as entitled to your views as we are.
> 
> BUT MURIEL NO WORSE THAN FRANNY?  (A few moments elapse while paramedics
> restart my heart and lungs.)  At least Franny is befuddled because she
> honestly cares about spiritualism, and is confused only because she has
> gathered too much information at one time!  Muriel doesn't even TRY to
> think spiritually at all, and actually GIGGLES at being called a
> "Spiritual Tramp". 

that's what i like about her. she's not all hand-to-forehead and woeful. i
think that that is what is so *great* about her. she's just a
down-to-earth person, who doesn't try to fill her head with zen koans and
dickinson poems. she just *is*.

> It calls to mind Franklin's bitter satire of Ginnie
> Mannox in Eskimos; it seems like Muriel thinks being called a tramp is
> "just so CUTE".  YUCK!  
> 
> Sorry if I seem a little hostile, but Franny is one of my favorite
> characters (if not the favorite) and I can't stand Muriel.  But I would
> agree that she fits into the same league as Sally Hayes, another annoying
> little girl in a late-teen body.

hey, no problem, :) franny was/is one of my favourite characters. but
there comes a point when i get so tired of pick-pick-picking everything
apart and muriel is just refreshing. franny is sitting in a fetid bell
jar, going over all these arbitrary religious/spititual things in her
head, while muriel is just living. she's just *being*. she's not striving
for any sort of higher purpose, she just takes each day as it comes, and
has noble but human aspiriations (like her wanting her own family and xmas
decorations, and holden wanting to have lots of kids with a deaf-mute so
that everything doesn't get all complicated).

i personally think there's value in that. i think there's joy to be found
in thinking puppies are cute and not worrying about anything more than
what colour your dress is. i think that spitituality is not going to be
found by *trying* to think about it too much. i think it's to be found in
just *existing*... in the work-a-day things.

yes, muriel is rather child-like, but she's harmless. she's not nasty or
cruel, she's just uncomplicated. that doesn't make her a class two
citizen. we're not living in an intellectual caste system.  

i'll concede that if i knew her in real life, i'd probably find it hard to
repress an urge to smack her in the head, but as a character in a
salinger created world filled with people who o.v.e.r.a.n.a.l.y.s.e
everything, she's like a great big lump'o'fun.

> <contented sigh> OK, I've vented now, carry on :)

i hope your heart's okay!
                                         :helena kim

                     helena at netsoc dot tcd dot ie
           'the church is near, but the road is icy.
         the bar is far, but i will walk carefully.'
                                   - russian proverb