'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.
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Received on Mon Sep 16 15:44:11 2002
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