Re: Back to School

Jim,
Your right, it seems Salinger likely hated psychoanalysis as much, if not
more, than literary critics. Yet there's even more ambivalence when you read
in The Catcher in the Rye the part where Holden calls on Carl Luce the
"smartest boy " he knew, and listens to him give a quick lesson on analysis.
Something about "patterns of our minds" and Holden considers therapy, if I
am not mistaken. Imagine one of Salinger's most precious characters
voluntarily on the couch asking what his/her dreams meant! Not likely...

aaron
>From: Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu>
>Reply-To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
>To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
>Subject: Re: Back to School
>Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 18:47:12 -0400
>
>Yeah, there's some real ambivalence there...good observations. It's hard
>to say
>where it comes from. An outsider's resentment? Annoyed by criticism but
>too
>big a reader himself? Seems like there was one line in Raise High or S:AI
>about
>the real problem with lit studies being its dependence upon psychoanalysis,
>psychanalysis being the only thing Salinger hated as much at literary
>critics...
>
>Jim
>
>Aaron Sommers wrote:
>
> > One of the most interesting aspects of Salinger's works is when the
>subject
> > of education is broached. There is the obvious contempt for the
>"parasitic"
> > Lane Coutell's, who want praise for being a lit. critic and are
>candidates
> > for future section men in various English Departments. Then there is
> > Nicholson and the specialized educators (Lidekker group), who like to
>study
> > people like Teddy and Zooey, trying to map a blueprint of how the gears
>in
> > them turn. But just when I believe that Salinger is moving in a
>direction
> > that suggests children should teach themselves, that English professors
>are
> > leeches, and that English depratments are useless because you "can't
>keep a
> > born scholar ignorant" anyway, I realize the author's "alter-ego"
>teaches
> > "Advanced Writing 24-A". And how many members of his all girl
>composition
> > class will turn into Mrs. Fedder's, do you think? Moreover, Seymour was
>the
> > first to choose his profession as an English Professor, at any Ivy
>League
> > school, no less. But he had certainly been a mentor within the family
>long
> > before that official appointment at age 18. Also, Mr. Antolini was the
>only
> > person Holden respected from school. So does anyone else notice while
> > Salinger derives pleasure in bad-mouthing aspects of education, he still
>has
> > respect for the teaching profession?
> >
> > -Aaron
> >
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Received on Sun Aug 25 22:00:42 2002