Re: friends of Ernie

Emily Friedman (bananafish_9@yahoo.com)
Sun, 11 Oct 1998 18:36:38 -0700 (PDT)

---Tim O'Connor <tim@roughdraft.org> wrote:
>
> At 6:04 PM -0400 on 10/11/98, you wrote:
> 
> > I found Soldier's Home deeply moving. I'm not quite sure if it's
one of his
> > better known short stories but the way that Krebbs tells his
mother he
> >doesn't
> > love her and then as she starts to cry, gives in and says it even
though he
> > doesn't mean it is very reminiscent to me of the inner conflict in
Salinger
> > characters dealing with their contempt for oblivious people yet
their
> > desperate need for companionship.
> 
> Yes, that story is very disturbing.  Hemingway's own mother, when he
was
> back from the war and not entirely sure about his prospects for the
future,
> eventually kicked him out and wrote him a pious note that said, in
effect,
> a mother's love is like a bank, with deposits and withdrawals made,
and
> that Hemingway -- through his aimlessness and what she saw as his
lack of
> morality -- had overdrawn his account.  It was an astonishingly
hostile
> communication, and so it never surprises me to see unsympathetic
mothers in
> Hemingway.  (After Hemingway's father committed suicide with a
handgun,
> Mrs. H. mailed the gun to Ernest -- another indication of her
incomparable
> sensitivity.)
> 
> Myself, I've been mulling over "Fathers and Sons" a lot lately.
> 
> I think we often see in Salinger the need in his characters to reach
out to
> other people but also the compulsion to withdraw from them.  I thought
> about this a lot today, because, as I said in an earlier message, I
was
> heading out for what I had hoped would be a nice walk in the sun,
but when
> I got to Central Park (near our favorite lagoon and its ducks),
there were
> the remains of a parade, and the streets were mobbed, and it was
> unpleasant, and all my hopes of a bit of peaceful wandering in the
sun were
> dashed, and I thought of Holden wandering these same streets looking
for
> something, anything, and feeling the frequent need to back off from
> whatever might happen.
> 
> They've just cleaned off and rededicated Grand Central Terminal
here, where
> Holden sleeps on a bench, and it occurred to me that at some point
it might
> be entertaining to put up some pictures on the list web page -- of the
> lagoon, of the waiting room in Grand Central, of the Indian canoe --
for
> subscribers who might want to see what Salinger is writing about but
who
> may not get to NYC any time soon.
> 
> At the same time, of course, there are some things that might be
better
> left to the imagination.  As Horwitz might say, Whaddaya think?
> 
> --tim o'connor
> 
> Tim I do think it is a good idea to show pictures of the lagoon,
etc... I do not get to go to NY very often so it would be interesting.
I'll be in NY in April but I do not know my way around Central Park.By
the way what have you been mulling over of "Fathers and Sons" ? I
liked that story a lot. The Nick Adams stories are some of my
favorites because I am from MI and I feel that Hemmingway really
captures what Northern MI is like. I read "Soldier's Home" and I do
see the similarities it shares with Salinger's stories. Seymour would
be a character I would parallel with Krebs.
> 

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