Re: Muriel
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Sun, 28 Nov 1999 16:50:52 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 11/28/99 3:43:53 PM Eastern Standard Time,
lp9616@bristol.ac.uk writes:
> Of course if you love Seymour and despise Muriel she is being sold
> short.
eh, this is a bit of a non-sequitur. I would only think Muriel is being
"sold short" if I, in fact, liked her (which I do), and if I think she's not
being given enough credit (which I didn't think Tim's post did). I mean, I
actually said she "understood" Seymour, possibly, in ways others (even his
own family) didn't.
How God Awful Annoying :)
Let's not forget, he married her. Not out of despair, either.
> There is a wonderful passage from his diary in RHRBC where he speaks of
> WHY he loves Muriel, about how she wants to go to the hotel lobby and
> ask if her husband has picked up the mail, and how he feels that she
> and her mother fill his pockets with endless invisible cosmetics, for
> which he feels immensely grateful but which he doesn't know what to do
> with. I think it's important to remember the overwhelming tenderness
> with which that diary is written when reading "Bananafish". Muriel
> isn't perfect. Maybe she's not one of the Seymours or Frannys or
> Zooeys. But how many of us are?
>
> Thanks, Tim, for bringing up a genuinely interesting topic.
>
> Love, Lucy-Ruth
> ----------------------
Good points made to the wrong person.
Jim