Re: Inverted Forests

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> rod, Inverted Forest is one of my favorites, too...in some ways ray ford
> is seymour without a family...will
> 
I didn't actually feel the same about Ray Ford.  Seymour would have 
seen the good in Bunny, I suppose.  Shine his shoes for her or 
something maybe.  But Ford seemed to have an emotional dependancy on 
an abusive woman to do his thinking for him.  Without that woman he 
could only relate to poetry.  I think he said in the story somewhere 
(I'd go look but I need to get back to work quickly) the all he had 
thought about for years or whatever was poetry.  With the entrance of 
dear Miss Croft into his life he had again found "the brain" through 
which he could relate to his image of life.  Just an my opinion after 
going through it the first time.  

I actually found Ray Ford to be the more obvious character in the 
book.  Salinger worked the final scene a bit disturbing, but it made 
sense.  It wasn't predictable, but it wasn't totally shocking and 
unnatural either (I hold to the fact that Ford's action and words in 
the last scene were definitely disturbing though, as they should be.  
But maybe the fact that I was working on a camp with teenagers that 
came from alcoholic, abusive homes added the extra emotional weight)

It was Corinne and Mary "Bunny" Croft that really struck me as the 
interesting cases in The Inverted Story.  Corinne's obsession with 
Ray from childhood carrying through to adulthood.  She seemed to have 
the whole "knight in shining armor" mentality in regards to Ray.  But 
I have this feeling there's more to her than I got in the first 
reading (therefore anyone else observations in regards to this story 
would be great to hear)

And Bunny Croft was bizarre indeed.  Her character actually bordered 
on unrealistic, which is one of the few slams against this great 
story.  I wonder if their wasn't some other connection between her 
and Ford implied somewhere that I missed.  And her actions towards 
Corinne in the last scene were quite twisted.

Oh man, I gotta quit and get back to work, but I think I could go on 
about this one.  Kind of story I wish I would have written.

seeya,

Rod's Trip

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