The Sound of Salinger
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Fri, 24 Apr 1998 09:54:54 +1000
Here, as promised, is the Art Garfunkel interview I told you about that
mentions an `unpublished' JDS story. It's in Australian Rolling Stone
issue 494, January 1994. (In my experience, our local version's overseas
quota is usually filled with material from the American version from about
2-3 months previous so Oct-Dec 1993's your best bet in the American
version)
The relevant section is as follows:
[Garfunkel has just been asked about his burgeoning acting career when
this question comes up]
RS : Any dream roles ?
AG : J.D. Salinger wrote a collection of unpublished short stories that
came into my hands. One is magnificent. It's about a young man who loses
his way in his male-female relationships as he ages. And there's
something sympathetic about this guy, and the dichotomy between his
worthiness and his lostness touches me to the max.'
`As he ages' still puts me in mind of an older rather than younger
Salinger (although when you think about it this storyline could be
describing quite a lot of his characters!). As I haven't read the un-
published stories (and I know that even mentioning any of them potentially
opens us up to All Sorts of Legal Trouble) but I'd be interested to know
whether it is or isn't one of the ones in those illicit circulating
manuscripts. I've
checked it against Steve Foskett's list and can't find any parallels (this
becomes less like literary discussion and more like archaeology by the
minute). Can anyone tell me, even if it is `off the record' so to speak?
I feel kind of bad probing these early works (if they are such) - I guess
I'd be pretty furious on one hand if all of my early stories were shown
around without my permission. On the other hand, I'm sure we would all
approach such works inthe knowledge that they were crucial in the
development of a great writer - as curiosities perhaps, not full paying
members of the `canon'. And if they
*aren't* early works - if they are part of this mystical Lost Manuscript In
The
Attic type dream we all have of Salinger's literary wall safe, I'd
certainly be interested to know how Art Garfunkel came to have them!
By the way, this has probably been noted many times before, but did anyone
notice that Sybil's (Bananafish) surname is Carpenter - as in roof beams,
raising?
Also, another scary parallel in Nabokov's `Pale Fire' today. He recounts a
conversation in which he tells the late poet John Shade that : `People in
GLASS houses shouldn't write poems.' Scary or what?
`De Daumier Smith's Blue Period' is my favourite Nine Story at the moment
(it changes all the time) Does anyone else have favourite Nine Stories (and
am I crazy in believing the Nine may have something to do with the Nine
Noble Paths of Buddhism)?
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442