Last Furlough

From: Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie>
Date: Mon Sep 16 2002 - 15:44:07 EDT

    'The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one
    big thing ...'

    I imagine we each recognise, without too much introspection,
    to which species we belong.

    There never was much doubt about Salinger's spiky coat
    & sweetly myopic snout - but 'The Last Day of the Last
    Furlough' confirms it. Already they're all there, as they
    remain so many years later: the doomed man, the Vigilant
    Mother & her acidly-joshing, marshmallow son, the redemptive
    little girl, the mystical pursuit of the Good ....

    It's certainly interesting to see the glints of 'otherness',
    of magic, in what is essentially a very pedestrian piece
    of sentimentality. (And embarrassingly lopsided - which
    fault the writer himself tries neutralise with pre-emptive
    recognition.) I doubt even the Satevpost would have given
    it houseroom - but for the APO address on the covering letter.

    Scottie B.

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Mon Sep 16 15:44:11 2002

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sun Aug 10 2003 - 20:51:47 EDT