Re: josh and tim - religion & jds characters
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Thu, 10 Jul 1997 07:47:59 -0500
>franny spent quite a bit of time and energy having a breakdown caused by
>her search for truth and sincerity in prayer - and on seemingly finding
>something to focus that search on (at least momentarily) in christianity
>(while zooey urged her to differentiate between christ and other people
>in the bible). i don't know if i would consider this so much a
>testimonial on her part than as a step on her path, but it still seemed
>significant.
I think you have something there; the religious -- I generally think of it
as "spiritual" -- nature of Franny's crisis is, of course, built around her
devotion to the prayer, and Zooey's advice to her (though drenched in
references to wisdom of various denominations) seems to me, in its lack of
specifics, to be so secular, it nearly bypasses what I think of when I
think of formal religion.
That's a strange bias on my part. I grew up in a world where you got the
proverbial "A+" just for doing the mechanics of it, which explains my own
dislike of traditional religious conventions, and which makes me appreciate
the amorphous spirituality of the Glass family.
>in down at the dinghy, boo-boo managed to get an
>explanation of their child being upset at the derogatory name called of
>his father (which went completely over his head - racially speaking). he
>may have been picked at because of his jewish heritage culturally more
>than religiously, but the difference betweeen the two seemed irrelevant
>as he only recognized the cruelty, even though he misunderstood its
>religious nature
Yes! Thanks for that pointer; I had forgotten the slur the boy overhears.
Not enough coffee lately, I think....
>as for books into movies - wharton's A Midnight Clear was excellent in my
>opinion, and i think i'll watch Birdy tomorrow and see how it goes. any
>warnings against it? will it ruin the book for me? good night all.
Birdy was OK as movies go -- it's funny to hear the plaintive echoes at the
end, because they resemble Zooey's "hey, buddy, hey buddy, are you
listening? Are you listening?" when he's talking to Franny on the phone.
I had read the book first, but the movie didn't spoil anything.
Funny trivia about the book. It's narrated in two voices, each
distinguished from the other by the typography. (One is in roman type, the
other italic.) But the very last line, it turns out, is neither. It's
oblique (which resembles italic, but is not identical). Wharton explained,
in a profile I read, that the very last line was meant to be a THIRD voice,
which was his (Wharton's) voice. He was dissatisfied that the hardcover
edition did not manage to make the distinction clear. It was one of those
subtle gestures that has meaning only if you manage to pick up all the
background details, but it is a fascinating glimpse of what went on in the
writer's head.
I have no idea if subsequent editions retained the subtle typographical
difference. With that kind of attention to detail, it's no wonder that
people thought Wharton was JDS!
Let us know what you think of the movie.
--tim o'connor