Re: "Salinger's Glass stories as a composite novel"


Subject: Re: "Salinger's Glass stories as a composite novel"
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 03 2001 - 21:45:57 GMT


Matt, I think your "attic" is full of ideas! I liked Eberhard
Alsen's study very much. I think it advanced Gerald Rosen's ideas
into a more comprehensive focus on the religious ideas in Salinger's
fiction. Eberhard Alsen has been most generous in giving us a letter
for Letters to Salinger and I think he makes it clear he was strongly
affected by Salinger's spiritual path and has found his own with
Salinger "sign markers." I think Alsen's reading of the longer short
stories is mighty fine! Another book that followed Alsen's lead is A
Religious Response to the Essential Dilema in the Fiction of J.D.
Salinger by Elizabeth Kurian. I don't know this scholar personally,
but her ideas are quite fine.

Regarding that picture of an aging Salinger in Alsen's book, yes,
it's unnecessary. But as I read Salinger widely for quotes for
Letters to Salinger chapters, I realized that was the same thing as
taking a snapshot of him. I want to be a little kid here and shout to
Salinger, "YOU STARTED IT!" I'll be polite now, but I can't help it.
Salinger's writing doesn't stop staying strong for me. Every time I
read his work I get so wrapped up in it I can't leave it without
something richer than my eyes deserve. Here's what this morning
reading's made me best realize. Salinger's spiritual and creative
nexus basically comes to the understanding that what isn't said or
written is what is most important. In that regard, his picture so
much obscures what he is about it is almost funny. At the end of
RHTRBC, Salinger leaves the reader with a blank piece of paper, "by
way of explanation." In "Hapworth 16, l924" Salinger wrote that "It
is my absolute opinion that the only poem of personal, haunting
interest to me that I have written so far this summer is the one I
have not written at all." It seems to me that Alsen's book is a
mighty fine attempt to gather what is mostly best expressed in the
white space on the page where the intelligent ink stains take a
breath and listen more closely to the rhythms of their own silence.

I'll be quiet now, except to say, I know this post isn't really a
good answer for you, but I wanted to play in your attic...did the
roof beam raise at all? Are we playing at summer camp yet? will

-- 
Will Hochman
Assistant Professor of English
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515
203 392 5024

http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html



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