Subject: Re: Walt's hand in "Uncle Wiggly" (was Re: Honeymoon?)
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 20 2000 - 10:54:23 GMT
On Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 01:13:32AM -0500, Cecilia Baader wrote:
> Well, but I'm going to throw one of your own ideas right back at you, Tim.
> Ahem. In a long ago archived list posting, you mentioned that in _A
> Moveable Feast_, Hemingway tells us how he's discovered the secret to
> writing. What is important is not what happens within the story, it is what
> has happened without: "The story was about coming back from the war but
> there was no mention of the war in it."
OK. Good one.
> The exact passage in question reads:
> Mary Jane extended her pack of cigarettes, saying "Oh, I'm dying
> to see her. Who does she look like now?"
> Eloise struck a light. "Akim Tamiroff."
> "No, seriously."
> "Lew. She looks like Lew. When his mother comes over, the three
> of them look like triplets." (24)
>
> So imagine you're Mary Jane, and you've been quizzing your best friend on
> the details of her life, worried about her. Does your kid look like
> somebody she shouldn't? she's maybe asking. No, Eloise is perhaps saying.
> She might as well be one of them.
>
> It's not impossible. I'm not saying that it's probable, I'm just saying
> that it's not impossible. I just reread the story with that interpretation
> in mind, and it puts a whole different spin on everything that's said.
I think it's a fascinating "what-if?" angle. I'm only skeptical
because I don't have a lot of faith in this level of subtlety in
magazine fiction of the time, but I have to admit that you make it
sound plausible.
> Don't forget that Eloise leaves college because she was caught in an
> elevator with a G.I. She's not exactly pure as the driven snow when she's
> dating Walt, even if she was wearing her bad Idaho clothes.
That's true, too.... I'd forgotten.
> I'd prefer to believe in the beautiful love that appears to be depicted, but
> I'm not sure if that's because I'm a silly romantic or if that's because
> it's the truth. So...?
Maybe this is what Salinger intended. Maybe he put subtle touches in
there and this is what enraged him about the clumsy Hollywood adaptation
in the form of "My Foolish Heart." As I said, I'm not entirely
convinced, but you make it seem more credible than I would previously
have thought it.
Now it's time to read that story again!
--tim
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