Re: Collecting Salinger

Camille Scaysbrook (the_globe@hotmail.com)
Thu, 15 Apr 1999 18:54:18 -0700 (PDT) 

Henry James completely revised his early stories to match the style 
of his
later stories, which even to me seems a tad anal-retentive (: . The 
thing
is, I've read both the early and later versions of several of these 
stories
and I always like the early versions better (not so many, as you 
expect,
from Henry James, commas!) Then again, Tennessee Williams completely
rewrote the third act of `Cat on A Hot Tin Roof' during its first
production - and rewrote it all over again for the revival nearly 
twenty
years later! In some ways I prefer that Salinger leaves well enough 
alone,
because it is fascinating to dig up those early tracks ...

Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest

> Jason makes a nice distinction between "publishing" stories on the 
list
> and trading and sharing privately...
> 
> Quickly, here's some response:
> 
> I don't know all of why Mr. Salinger doesn't collect and publish his
early
> work but he seems to not want to.  I agree that one value of these 
early
> stories is that they do show a writer growing and testing 
characters,
> families, poets, and many of the elements that we understand in his
> pbulished bookes.  There are other values (Ambrose Beers recently
> foregrounds RAy Ford from one of my favorites, "The INverted 
Forest) in
> the stories that make me think they are of interest and worthy of 
many
> more readers but I don't see why we can't respect Salinger's desire 
to
let
> them be where they are...in the public domain in a variety of 
magazines
> still available in your libraries and micro film data banks...
> 
> In his l974 NYTimes phone interview with Lacey Fosburgh, Salinger
> responded to an attempt to bootleg his uncollected stories by 
saying:
> 
> "I wrote [those stories} a long time ago and I never had any 
intention of
> publishing them.  I wanted them to die a perfectly natural death."
> 
> 
> "I'm not trying to hide the gaucheries of my youth, I just don't 
think
> they're worthy of publishing."
> 
> 
> Now I don't know if there's more to Salinger's thinking, especially 
with
> him seeming to publish _Hapworth_ and now hesitating, but I do 
respect
the
> author doing what he thinks best with the work he has written.  At 
least
> while he's alive and on this planet, I don't see why we can't 
respect
what
> has given us--hurting Salinger with our human desires seems to mean 
we
> haven't read the published books well enough to learn something 
about
> basic respect and honesty...
> 
> Do you think Holden would publish a bootleg version of _Out of 
Africa_ ?
> 
> will

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