Subject: Re: Two Questions
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliabaader@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Aug 10 2001 - 17:40:34 GMT
--- Matthew Cole <matthewcole26@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I just finished reading Joyce Maynard's book and it got me thinking
> about what effect, if any, an artist's personal life should have on
> how their work is percieved. The story that she told was obviously a
> little one sided but I didn't get the impression that she was
> overly bitter or unfair.
I finally read Maynard's book recently, too. (I found it on the
remainder table at Barnes & Noble for a dollar. What a deal.) I'm
afraid that I'll have to disagree with you on the bitter aspect of
things. She's angry as hell.
However, a person loves who a person loves who a person loves. And it
came across vividly in her account that, in the beginning, Jerry
Salinger loved her. Madly. They wrote daily letters sharing their most
secret selves, letters in which this sweet young thing confessed her
feelings of otherness and separateness and he told her that she was
brilliant and talented and that they were "landsmen." That is, of the
same place, spiritually.
Hell. I'd have fallen for him, too.
And you can see from her writing why he would have loved her. She's
intelligent and artistic and she told him he was right about everything.
There's nothing a man likes better than to be told that he's right.
So they meet and do this wonderful tragic long-distance thing -- until
they cannot stand to be apart any longer -- and she moves to Cornish
with him. Now, at this point, Maynard goes on at length about old
Jerry's many foibles. He's got a ton of crackpot ideas, to be sure,
with his holistic medicine and insane need for cleanliness. Add to that
a nineteen year old's desperate need for attention and a loner's need
for space and you've got something that's going to end badly. And it
did. Based on her account, he's got to be about the most patient man in
the universe. I'd have booted her neurotic self out of my house in
about two days. But what the hell. You love who you love.
In terms of connecting the author to the work, the work IS the author.
Salinger's admitted that, more than once. Because he's not a saint or
the newest modern-day prophet, everybody runs around all the time
feeling betrayed. Betrayed? Why is everybody looking to a recluse as a
hero? He's just as messed up as all the rest of us. The thing is, I
hope like hell that none of my former boyfriends ever have cause to
write a tell-all about me. I'm sure that I'd come out just as badly.
> My second question is about "The Heart of a Broken Story" short story.
> It seems to be a much more lighthearted and informal piece and
> stands out as something different than his other short stories
> that were published around the same time (Louis Taggett, Personal
> Notes on an Infantryman, etc.)
It's a sweet story, no? Devoid of his usual New Yorker cynicism. I'm
afraid that I don't have any history or background of this story, though
I do like it. I think -- and I believe that many of you will agree with
me -- that many of his uncollected stories are some of his best.
Regards,
Cecilia.
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