Re: Pilgrim Books (Catcher)

WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Fri, 16 Oct 1998 11:15:21 -0600 (MDT) 

C, I enjoyed this idea very much.  I reread the carousel scene
and wondeered if you understood how the rain works? 

Oh yes, I'm holden asking where the ducks go, but stay with me...you see
there's Holden who has finally understood if Phoebe reaches and falls,
he's got to let her (meaning perhaps, that he realizing his own fall and
already gaining some calm and some perspective) and then as Phoebe goes to
ride again it starts to rain.  She kisses him, holds his hand, reaches
into his pocket to "crown" him with his own hunting hat, and there he sits
in the pouring rain while everyone else clusters under the center of the
carousel.

Then read that last paragraph of chapter 25 (the scholar in me yearns to
type it out, but out of list courtesy I think I'm not supposed to...but I
do wonder tim about how much is proper to quote when making a point...any
point?) and help me with this last line, "God, I wish you could've been
there."

In some way, his transcendence might mean god was there...our resident
psychoanalyst may read this part as typical of breakdowns (a grinning boy
soaked to the bone happy because his sister rides a caousel in a blue
coat)...and maybe he's just pleased with the relief of realizing his
limits in helping self and others...that wanting the truth doesn't mean
saving or hating phonies, but doing it.

Is Holden transcending adolecesnce, his spirtual path, his sanity,his
parents' inabilities,  his social adaptation,Pencey Prep,  his morality?

Will you say more, camille?

others?

It's raining.  I really want to know,

will

 On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Camille Scaysbrook wrote:

> Absolutely! And the main point of much modernist and postmodernist writings
> has been that transcendence can, does and in fact in a modern world must,
> occur in the most seemingly inappropriate of places. That's what TS Eliot's
> `Four Quartets' is all about and it's what's crystalised in Holden's
> watching Phoebe go round and round on the merry go round. The possibility
> of transcendence in a mundane world.
> 
> Camille
> verona_beach@geocities.com
> @ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
> @ THE INVERTED FOREST www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest
> 
>