Subject: van't to be alone
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Mon Sep 04 2000 - 04:09:17 GMT
'... But I'm wholly uninterested in what sort of bathrobe
he wears and whether he prefers his Cheerios with milk
or with urine ...'
Well, if my much loved wife started plonking an amber
coloured jug on the breakfast table I'd begin to wonder &
I freely admit to a similar emotion when such a taste is
reported of a much loved writer. I suppose that's just me.
We belong to the most repellant species on the face of
the earth but each new appalling revelation only seems to
sharpen my curiosity further.
I do agree with Cecilia, though, about downward drift of
things generally. On the one hand, we have the Bright People
flitting in & out of the manipulated floodlights as & when
it suits them. And on the other the Untermenschen, baffled,
envious, cynical & snarlingly gleeful when one of the Chosen
falls flat on his hooter. I'm with the Poison Dwarfs.
I always assumed that Salinger's reclusiveness started as
a neurotic tic. But like so many neuroses it quickly began
to confer secondary benefits on the sufferer. The elaborately
maintained secrecy (though not all THAT well maintained)
has proved the most marvellous of publicity gimmicks. It served
Garbo wonderfully well, turning a moderately good looking,
moderately competent actress into a world famous icon. It has
turned the writer of a handful of now outmoded short stories
& one prescribed textbook into a figure everyone knows about
- not for his writing but for being a recluse.
Ridiculous. Wringing one's hands over Jerome's privacy is like
worrying about Jennifer Anniston's.
Scottie B.
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