Rosebud (was AH & TRP)

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     My buddy Mascaro goes off the deep end:
     
     >We do tend to inject, say, Kane's stupid rosebud with heavy symbolic 
     >significance, but a student of mine just wrote me a nice paper 
     >showing that rosebud too is a McGuffin. 
     
     Now hold on thar, Babalouie.  I was with you when you said that Pynchon 
     took the McGuffin to a deeper level than Hitchcock etc. etc., but, "stoopid 
     rosebud?"  C'mon, John, Rosebud's as much a symbol of sweet, sad loss 
     remembered in repose as the Fire of Paradise.  (Forget about it bein' a 
     spectacularly audacious tweak by boy-genius Welles on William Randolph 
     Hearst's showgirl lovin' nose.  C-cunts, anyone?)  The difference between 
     Rosebud and a MacGuffin is that, if one is successfully able to follow the 
     quest to its source, the meaning of the symbol *will* become apparent, the 
     answer *will* be found.  It must be so, because Citizen Kane is, in part, a 
     cautionary tale (and Rosebud is its leitmotif) that traces Kane's losses 
     over the years beginning with his separation from his mother.  There's no 
     argument from me that it's the viewer of the film -- and not the reporter 
     -- that makes these connections (so, I guess, in that sense, Rosebud *does* 
     lead to nowhere), but the connections get made, Johnny.  The same is *not* 
     true of, say, Stencil's quest, or Oedipa's.
     
     Send me that kid's paper.  I want to read it.
     
     Third post of the day.  Must be those Wheaties.
     
     Chris