Re: concern
J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Sun, 02 Aug 1998 18:20:27 -0400 (EDT)
<<Now can someone PLEASE help me out with my questions about Buddy Glass
from my
email the other day???
JD>>
Alright, the Seymour, Buddy and Salinger connection:
On the level of understanding the fiction writing of Salinger, Buddy may
be a disciple figure and Seymour the dead spiritual leader figure--like
Christ had the apostles and we only know His words through them, and like
Socrates had Plato. It is par for the course with a great spiritual
leader.
And yes, we worry that our knowledge is "skewed" since we're getting it
second hand (if we don't believe a personal encounter with a physically
absent spiritual leader is possible), but skewed by what? On one level
the disciple is the product of the Master, so the disciple's presentation
of the Master bears the Master's mark as well as the disciple's. But on
the other hand, we would ourselves "skew" the presentation in our own way
with our own direct encounter. Rather than calling it "skewed" I think
that's part of the nature of the thing.
Looking at Buddy/Seymour, since we would all Skew Seymour by meeting him
ourselves, we should only trust Buddy to present him to us, since Buddy
grew up with Seymour, lived with him, and was influenced by him his whole
life. This is a necessary evil since the Only way EVERYONE could
possibly "meet" Seymour is through a written text. Once you have a need
for a written text, you need a writer, and Buddy is the only obvious
choice.
The best choice would be three or four writers, or more, of course, who
are equal to Buddy in experience of Seymour and ability to write. Then
we could see our subject more "objectively" by seeing him from several
angles at once.
Now, the Buddy/Salinger connection:
I think Salinger is exploring issues raised by author/character
interactions here. I think the questions and the ensuing play around
them is part of the meaning we'd get from examining these issues. Your
questions seem to be the kind we'd ask a real author if he were writing
about a real person. How do you know about that conversation if you
weren't there? In real life--say, in the Gospel accounts--we have either
eyewitnesses writing (Matthew and John, and John is a quintesstial
eyewitness account--it is clearly written from not only one philosophical
point of view, but from a Physical point of view within the scenes), or a
person who tells us he interviewed eyewitnesses (luke) or a person who,
according to tradition, hung out with an eyewitness (Mark influenced by
Peter).
Buddy's writing in, say, Bananafish is in the form of modern short
fiction but narrating real events (for his world). He doesn't bother to
tell us How he came about all this information. We can speculate. But I
think if we try to make it "real world" we're missing the point. I think
the point is author/character relationships. I think Salinger is
commenting on his own writing through Buddy. In Seymour, an
Introduction, however, he's writing something more like a journal. This
one's easier to understand as far as these issues are concerned because a
personal journal is accessible. We understand how those work.
Jim
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