Posted by mair on August 22, 2002, at 13:35:50
In reply to Re: Role of Cohn?? » mair, posted by Ritch on August 22, 2002, at 2:07:33
I think I agree with tabitha on this. I'm not sure Cohn is sincere, but he's definitely emotional and not as detached as the others are. And this detachment is viewed as a social trait - like it's not cool to show that you really feel deeply about something. So the others can tolerate Cohn just fine until he starts displaying the extent of his emotional investment, and then they are repelled by it and all of their aniti-semitism comes to the fore.
This is the only explanation that makes sense to me as to why Mike didn't seem to be bothered by Brett's dalliances, and why Jake kept saying that she would marry Mike. They seemed to be drawn together by social convention (or the extent of their true shallowness) as much as anything else, and maybe they were a match because they weren't so very different - he was bankrupt, and misused his creditors and she was emotionally bankrupt, and definitely misused prospective lovers.
Mair (who thinks it's more fun thinking about this book than it was reading it)
poster:mair
thread:548
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20020616/msgs/635.html