Re: With Love and Squalor

MEPIERCE (mepierce@sfasu.edu)
Fri, 19 Feb 1999 10:33:26 -0600

blah b b blah wrote:
> 
> It's a DANGEROUS thing to try to Explain to an English Prof a story
> he/she didn't "get," but I guess I can tell you what I "got" out of it...
> :)
> 
> It's the With Love and Squalor thing.  You need to contrast the
> inconsiderate boorishness of the man visiting Sgt. X, and the violent
> aftereffects of War upon Sgt. X, with Esme's charm, consideration, and,
> above all else, love.  She saved him by sending him that watch.  It was
> nothing more than saying, "you mean something to me," when everyone else
> -- the whole world, in fact --  was saying, "your feelings and life are
> meaningless."
> 
> Esme was an oasis of love and civility in the middle of a WW II
> battlefield.
> 
> Jim
> 
> 

Thanks Jim--I do appreciate your analysis--beautifully written.

But I still can't feel the magic :(  I am surprised by own lack of
compassion for these characters.  I promise to give the story another
read this summer.  I'm not sure I "felt the magic" of Catcher upon the
first reading either. 

But now Teddy is another matter. . .
-- 
M.E. Pierce
Dept. of English, SFASU
http://TITAN.SFASU.EDU/~f_pierceme/
"I loaf and invite my soul. . ." Uncle Walt