Subject: The Laughing Man (no more acronyms)
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Oct 06 2000 - 02:41:10 GMT
In very short order, from Paul, Mattis & Will we've
had three quite distinct & cogently argued interpretations.
But, of course, you could skip all that interpreting & read
it simply as a construct of boyhood, recreating the way it was -
the inexplicable behaviour of grown ups, the weather in the park,
the sort of hilariously improbable narratives that appeared
in a million comic books of the time .... Which would probably
be my own personal inclination.
But with a writer like Salinger there's always the nudge-nudge
wink-wink to prowl around searching for the arch, inner meaning
behind the ambiguous exterior: like a Victorian lady directing
her readers towards the moral of the story. I think this is what
irritates: the implication that 'there's something poignantly profound
here, buddy, profound but inexpressible...' - and then being left
high & dry to ponder it all as if it were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
& not just twenty minutes' diversion waiting for the dentist to finish
with the previous patient.
I blame it all on those moralistic symbol hounds from the Eng Lit
department.
Scottie B.
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