Re: the "Maynard on Salinger" article
Andy Wishart (wishy@nettaxi.com)
Thu, 06 Aug 1998 17:40:26 +0000 (GMT)
>Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 13:05:44 -0500
>From: Tim O'Connor <tim@roughdraft.org>
>To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>Subject: the "Maynard on Salinger" article
>Message-ID: <v04003a00b1ee3ed53cf9@roughdraft.org>
>He urges Maynard to write what she MUST write, not what provides ego
>gratification.
This has been a difficult, thorny issue to me for years. =20
I mentioned eons back now, that I sometimes thought Salinger had
killed me. It was attempting just this very thing that almost did for
me. I'm not up on psychiatry, psychology, or whatever psych-doodah,
ego stuff relates to, but I do know that it wasn't until I knocked off
trying to suppress my ego, stopped meditating and looking Eastward,
and realised that while -indulging- in this, I'd, paradoxically, never
been -more- egotistical, that I started writing again.
If my writing wasn't to entertain or enlighten or inform, what would
it be for? Unless I believed my work inadequate, would I ever write
not to be read? Of course not. Why would I?
Is there any way to write without ego? I haven't found it. I can
hardly sign a cheque without hoping someone's salting it away for
posterity. Salinger, I feel now, never pulled it off. It could even
be argued that any of his "eccentricities" may be ego related. Why
would he still be writing to stick his stuff in the safe or in the
back of a drawer like a teenager's poetry? Even if these reports are
more than myth-making, I (happily, now) can't say it's behaviour that
fills me with inspiration.
If Salinger has a couple of books lying awaiting publication on his
death, what are we to make of this? Should we somehow look
indulgently on it? I don't think so. If he's got something for us to
read, let's have it - if not, well that's fine too. He's already done
a masterly job. Perhaps, really, when it gets down to it - that's
his fear.
--=20
Cheers,
Andy