"The Toast" and Salinger

Having read Salinger’s “For Esmé with Love and Squalor,” it is clear Rebecca Curtis chose to mimic several different aspects of its story in her own piece titled, “The Toast.” Apart from the entire introduction of the writing of a toast for an upcoming wedding, there are several other qualities of Salinger’s work that Curtis alludes to. What is particularly evident and actually slightly off putting for me, is the way she chose to emulate his writing in such a scrutinizing manner. I found myself reading sentences about the marriage situation or the flashbacks to the past and recalling virtually the exact sentence from “For Esmé with Love and Squalor.” The very end of the piece was in my perspective the most clear similarity when our narrator, Sonya, refers to herself as the “Creative Writing Professor X” just like the mysterious Sergeant X, and describes the scene in which she realizes what she has begun to write is illegible. While it was a nice touch, reusing the scene of Sergeant X opening letters seemed to me like an exact copy of plot that felt slightly forced and only somewhat relevant to the story.

In fact, I found myself disliking such obvious similarities and wishing she had chosen to be more subtle in her attempt to mimic Salinger’s piece. Granted, we have read these two works in a very quick succession and have discussed the similarities in depth so we are keen to pick out the details shared between the stories. However, I still couldn’t understand the purpose of being so obvious, other than to honor Salinger’s story in the full (which is not an odd thing to do). After reading and discussing the story, I realized I might be too biased to appreciate the relationship between the stories and began to ponder the aspects of the story other than its similarities with “For Esmé with Love and Squalor.” The character of Haven particularly sparked my interest and I began to question her role in the story.

I realized that in a way, Haven was similar to Walt from “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut.” If you recall, Walt was Eloise’s former companion/lover who was the only man who could make her laugh and was the subject of many of her fondest memories. We discussed the idea of her treasuring her youth and genuine reality with Walt and how she idealized her time with him. The whole time however, Walt had passed away and Eloise was living a phony life with a husband she didn’t truly love and a life she didn’t enjoy. I think the same goes for Sonya’s mother and Haven. It was clear from the story their mother enjoyed the time with Haven, in fact she could not stop talking about going over to her house and spending time with her. As the story progressed, they grew apart but made promises to keep in touch. When they finally got back together, their mother could not contain herself before the visit but when it finally happened, it was short and nothing like it had been before. In a sense, their mother (or Haven) had changed since their youth and while their mother cherished this image of Haven and her as children, it was clear the connection had been lost (at least somewhat). Still, their mother kept this fantastical image of their companionship while her two daughters strayed apart from her and her life seemed to go downhill from there. While Eloise and Walt’s relationship was a romantic one and Walt actually died, the same sort of dynamic connection was alluded to in Haven and Sonya’s mom.