Esme's Compassion

From Bananafish

Esme's Compassion
Author	Paul Miller

I remember a critic who wrote that For Esmé - with Love and Squalor, the story, was a gloss on the Dostoevski quote Sergeant X writes down. I bought into this at first. With closer readings I find I disagree with this.

The quote Sergeant X writes is a way of reaching out and communicating to the Nazi lady and combating her idea that life is hell with the idea from Dostoevski that hell is the suffering of being unable to love. This latter idea, no matter how true, will not save the Nazi lady. For one thing she will never read it. Also ideas do not save people. Sergeant X realizes this failed attempt when he looks down and the quote is illegible and his own misery is very mich intact.

When he reads the letter from Esme, who we remember has been training herself to be more compassionate, this person to person compassion is redemptive for him. Esme has trained herself to surmount her own wall long enough to meet others at the corner where compassion is possible.

In the christian myth, for example, it is not ideas or doctrine that save people. It takes a person to save a person, as Esme in a very real way saves Sergeant X with her compassion.