Re: Seymour an Introduction

That's the point, Paul. Salinger wrote pretty long after Joyce's _Ulysses_
and, say, Woolf's _The Waves_. He's not doing anything that's really all that
big of a stretch anymore. Anyone who reads widely at all these days can tell
it's a memoir of sorts and seems to be as much about the writing process as
about Seymour -- much less professional critics.

And Scottie's observation needs to be taken into account too. Once we've
identified the voice and what it's communicating, it seems to be just a little
bit too self congradulatory. The text even identifies this problem too, of
course -- Seymour mentions in a letter that one of Buddy's stories is a bit
"too clever."

The fact that Salinger noticed this fault doesn't mean he escaped it. Yes, the
author was being accountable to his characters and they seemed to judge him
harshly.

So do some of us.

Jim

Paul Miller wrote:

> Jim wrote:
> This isn't
> really "outside literary convention" when you consider that "literary
> convention" includes works like Finnegans Wake, Ulysses, Woolf's _The
> Waves_, a lot of Stein...........................
>
> Those works are inside literary convention now, how about when first
> written. Salinger seems to be writing so that the reader is aware of the
> writing process. On page 212 for example when describing Seymours hands he
> writes "The palms were broad, the muscle between thumb and index finger
> unexpectedly developed looking, "strong" ( the quotes are unnecessary-- for
> God's sake, relax)". The two quotes , Kafka and Kierkegaard, at the opening
> of this whatever genre you want to assign to it, are key to at least
> patially understanding what Salinger was "trying" to do. The quotes are
> really about characters, creations, taking on a life of their own and even
> in a sense holding the author accountable.
>
> Paul
>
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