Subject: Salinger's working identity
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Sat Aug 04 2001 - 22:34:07 GMT
Dear Matthew and Steve, your good responses kept me thinking even
though I have to think offline today and finish some editing chores
and writing chores...I think page 177 (paperback) of F&Z in Z has a
nice little nugget.
In my "reading blitz" during the past two days, I've been
continuously struck by how often Salinger uses "text within text"
rhetoric. Whether it's Allie's glove with poems on it, letters, or
beaverboard quote posting, Salinger seems to have mastered the "text
within text" way he divides himself and his words among his
characters.
Anyway, in Z, where Zooey enters the old apratment of Buddy and
Seymour and reads their beaverboard postings, the longest one (on
page 177) is from the Bhagavad Gita. It's all about "Work done with
anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such
anxiety." That may, in some way explain why Salinger choses not to
publish, but it doesn't explain why he didn't disappear. He could
have changed his name and lived quietly somewhere if he wanted to,
and yet he couldn't quite leave his words and characters, could he?
There's a paradox to the author and his identity that may not have
logic so much as emotion.
I disagree with Steve. I think he has a right to do what he wants.
He put words on a page and we loved him for it, but that doesn't mean
he has to love us back...and maybe he is, but in his own way.
Perhaps Salinger's way of loving the reader is getting out of the
way? There are a ton of hints in his work that indicate that he
knows authors aren't the sole producers of the play of the text, and
he may have done a less than perfect job as a recluse, but I think he
has a right to his freedom. We may not like how he expresses his
sense of liberty and freedom, but I don't think he owes anyone
anything because he wrote and published some fiction. Don't get me
wrong. There's plenty that's is odd and unexplainable in what we
know of his doings, but if any of us were under the kind of scrutiny
he's received, we would probably come off, in part, as odd or
unexplainable.
My guess is that Salinger is a true writer, a true artist,and as
history shows, writers and artists often live quirky lives. I choose
to focus on the life of Salinger on the pages he's published and I'm
happy to report that after a solid couple of days reading, the life
is as bright and generous as it ever was...I can read Salinger's
prose over and over again and get new insights and feelings. What he
does in New Hampshire or New Zealand is up to him and really quite
secondary to me. I guess what I'm thinking is that the writer's real
life is on the page and in the reader more than it ever was. This
may be a more "natural" progression for dead authors. I'm out on a
limb here, but I think Salinger wants to know his death and use it to
get out of the reader's way...he may be awkwardly living in seclusion
in New Hampshire, but the man I met on the pages I read recently had
"all his stars out." When we get to text within text it can become a
never ending spiral of words...how people fit in that spiral is the
stuff literature is made of...and it's my belief that Salinger agrees
with this idea and he wanted to get out of the way to make as much
reading room as possible...just a guess, will
will
-- Will Hochman Assistant Professor of English Southern Connecticut State University 501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515 203 392 5024
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