Subject: RE: Grey Days
From: WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 30 1997 - 15:44:44 GMT
depends on how you define suicide, malcs, doesn't it? for some it is a
psychological road driven to, for others disease, for others a sensing of
human futility, for others a sensing of life's joke, for others?
it seems to me there's much less to salinger's fiction if s's suicide is
not an enigma that can shed new light in our lives...since "A Perfect Day
for Bananafish" is considered one of the very best pieces of short fiction
by some and still taught in college (patience matt--one day your salinger
classes will click--you are too fine a salinger reader for your students
--and I'm fortunate to count myself among them--but eventually
your salinger classes will cook!). I would suggest
that s's suicide teaches powerfully. The disjunctive contrasts of poetic,
tragicly-war-wounded s with florida and muriel have to tear the fabric of
our culture. Somehow, there is sense in s's suicide, as well as poetry
(see Gary Lane) and mysticism (see hapworth's "prediction" of a life about
as long as the average telephone pole, I think...) and drama and yes,
unknowable indeterminacy. Or perhaps nothing else was going to speak to
muriel--that only the shock of waking up to her new husband dead could
awaken her life and love? And ours?
I admit I share s's facination with the contents of ashtrays...his
fascination with trees (and looking skyward) may have had to do with his
knowledge that most of what he is was never his body to begin with...
will
-
To remove yourself from the bananafish list, send the command:
unsubscribe bananafish
in the body of a message to "Majordomo@mass-usr.com".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Oct 09 2000 - 15:00:36 GMT