Will's Students - Adam - Vollmann's The Blue Wallet

[A. Rick]

Ray-

	Indeed! Bill has already reconciled the two relationships to himself. He
does not express any disapproval of the skinheads nor the Koreans. He wants
to maintain his relationship with Marisa and Jenny. He sleeps with Jenny,
but Marisa is the woman who cooks him breakfast. If he were to pass any
negative judgement on either of the two, how could he maintain these
relationships concurrently? Because Bill doesn't favor Marisa Jenny--or
doesn't show any favoritism between the two--his remains the dominant
member of the three in this relationship. Both Marisa and Jenny like him
enough to tolerate his other "girlfriend," so long as they don't think he
cares more for one of them and would thus be apt to pick one. Jenny even
tries to get him to pick her or the skinheads after she thinks Marisa stole
her (blue) wallet. Bill, the clever player that he is, will not choose and
gets to keep both.
	You comment that "one is left to wonder if both Jenny AND Marisa will
reconsider their appearance-based bigotries." This is not what I wonder
about; instead I wonder if Bill will be able to keep his neutrality and
thus retain his polarized relationships? I think Vollmann makes it very
clear that neither Jenny nor Marisa will cease their bigotry. He seems to
indicate that Marisa's and Jenny's unfounded prejudices will materialize
into genuine conflict:

"The thing you dislike or hate will surely come upon you, for when a man
hates, he makes a vivid picture in the subconscious mind, and it
objectifies." --Florence Scovel Shinn, 1928

Vollmann strategically places the above quote as a precursor to "The Blue
Wallet."

The dislike between Marisa and Jenny grows through the story and culminates
with the confrontation at the end. One is left to wonder what will exude
from this incident?


Thanks very much for your response. You were the only person to have read
TBW who responded to my essay. Yes, Will does a great job of enriching us
with some very interesting texts which most other teachers and schools
would balk at bringing into an 11th grade classroom. For summer reading
before this school year (which ends tomorrow), one of our books was Michael
Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburg. At least one parent felt strongly
against the appropriateness of this book's Catcher-in-the-Rye-like plot
involving issues of insecurity and homosexuality. Thus, Will could not put
any discussion of this novel into our curriculum. I do not doubt that the
same would have happened if parents had read The Blue Wallet.

Thanks again for your interest.

Adam Rick