Subject: Seymour's scars; Dylan & J.D.
From: George Ford (bf20455@binghamton.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 02 1997 - 02:30:07 GMT
At 11:12 PM 4/1/97 -0600, you wrote:
>>>Anyway, In Raise High The Roofbeam, Carpenters, Seymour said that he had
>>>scars on his hand from touching a yellow dress and patting Franny's
>>>head....(not exactly how it went). I thought that was the best part of
>>>the entire book.
Personally, I've always seen the scars (one of the most really deeply
affecting part of the book for me) as a sign of the effects, "marks",
certain people have left on him. In that way, they're kind of literal, as
if some mechanism in Seymour's physiology actually turned his palm yellow,
or, perhaps, it really _looked_ yellow to him, through some trick his mind
played on his eyes. The possibilities seem tantilizingly endless, but all
point towards Seymour's boundless sensitivity to those who were close to him.
only-kind-of-ob-Salinger: I'm really sorry I was on Spring Break during the
whole Dylan thread: it's the one I've been unconscioulsy waiting for: my two
favorites on the same list! The direct connections between the two are
perhaps few and tenuous, but they are both solidified as spokesmen (willing
or unwittingly) of their respective generations, and both have extended
their influence to subsequent generations (namely mine) because of the
timelessness and scope of their work: they articulate much of what is
universal in us poor little humans. For Salinger, that is perhaps our
search for honesty and innocence in ourselves and each other, as well as the
need for some sort of sprituality, call it enlightenment or whatever you
like. For Dylan, it is the expression of the restless journey of life
itself ("Tangled Up In Blue" is his definitive statement on this, but his
whole canon informs it: note his ever-changing artistic persona: folk,
rock&roll, born-again, icon - the archetypal troubador), and the search for
equality and justice and, yes, above all, "Dignity". Perhaps the connection
is not so tenuous after all. Isn't the narrator of "Like a Rolling Stone"
railing against the same phoniness that troubled Holden? Couldn't he _be_
Holden? And the older, wiser Buddy in some way paralleling the reflective
Dylan of the last couple of decades with his stories ("Lily, Rosemary and
the Jack of Hearts", "Under the Red Sky"), benedictions ("Forever Young"),
searches for spiritual peace (the beautiful "I Believe in You"), and
whimsical narrative ("Brownsville Girl").
Those who write off Dylan since the 70's I think miss the larger picture and
the importance of those albums to his body of work as a whole, in the same
way as some miss the significance of the publishing Hapworth, mediocre as it
allegedly is, in the consideration of Salinger's published canon. It is the
last of his stories to be published in the magazine (was it? or am I wrong
on this point?) and it is the closest we have ever gotten to Seymour, warts
and all. I could go on, but I'm falling asleep on the keyboard.
******************************************
George Ford
bf20455@binghamton.edu
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2371
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