RE: The Worst
Sean Draine (seandr@Exchange.Microsoft.com)
Thu, 03 Jun 1999 23:43:26 -0700
>> Jordie rants about A Boy in France:
> I rant therefore I am?
I picked the word "rants" mainly because it rhymes with France.
> These were dangerous, messy circumstances, and J.D.
> avoided them like a tightrope walker wearing two by fours
> for shoes and ten safety harnesses.
Indeed, enough of this letter reading crap! Where is the blood?
Where are the headless bodies? Where are the entrails? Why is
Salinger holding out on us?!
By the way, what in the hell does "like a tightrope walker
wearing two by fours for shoes" mean? Say what you will about
_A Young Boy in France_, at least isn't riddled with failed
metaphors.
> For J.D. to describe the pestilence of the trenches and to
> link that flavor of war to that with a soggy old letter is
> a cheap tactic.
It's fair to say the letter is a tactic. As I'm sure you know,
Salinger makes liberal use of letters in his writing (_Hapworth,
1924_, for example, is essentially one long letter). However, you
have entirely missed the point of the young boy in France's
letter, written to him by his little sister, Matilda, and not
by his parents, as you earlier stated. The point of the letter
is to provide a CONTRAST between the rotten, stinking, miserable,
unlamented circumstances the boy is in, and the day to day concerns
of a young American girl. Children as salvation is a recurring theme
throughout Salinger's writing. Read _For Esme With Love and Squalor_
for a second, more developed version of the idea behind this story.
> He chews emotion like bubble gum. When he got it stuck in
> his hair, and tried to pull it out, he backed into the corner
> of ancient didacticism.
No, no, no. He smokes emotions like cigarettes. When his pack ran out,
he tried to mooch one from the guy on the corner, but it turns out he
smoked menthols, so he ran into the street and was run over by the
taxi cab of twentieth century post-structuralism.
> Cynics will be around ad infinitum, you'd better get used
> to them.
I have nothing against cynics, just graduates of the Ethan Hawke
from _Reality Bites_ School of Cynical Posturing.
-Sean