Re: Another annoying message from me (Salinger and Sherwood)
patrick flaherty (pfkw@email.msn.com)
Tue, 11 Aug 1998 12:18:45 -0400
I read _Winesburg_ about three months ago and had a very similar experience.
I think that one can safely assume that Salinger was quite familiar with
Anderson's work when he was publishing back in the 1950's. It's funny that
you say Seth Richmond (is it Raymond?) is an "immature Holden". I often
find myself thinking that a character in fiction is a mature Holden.
Patrick
pfkw@msn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: JDHadden@aol.com <JDHadden@aol.com>
To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu <bananafish@lists.nyu.edu>
Date: Monday, August 10, 1998 11:27 PM
Subject: Another annoying message from me (Salinger and Sherwood)
>I was reading Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio", today (Modern Library
>edition, naturally) and I was startled when I read the story "The Thinker"
At
>first I kept thinking "it sounds almost like he's writing about me"...
Then I
>remembered that the only other time I had felt this was in reading CITR....
>As I read more of the story, I felt more and more as if the character, Seth
>Richmond, was just like Holden Caulfield... Seth complained of the "people
>who just talked all of the time" but didn't really say anything, while
Holden
>complained of "phonies"... After reading "Winesburg", and "The Thinker",
in
>particular, I am almost convinced that the character of Seth was the basis
of
>Holden. I could almost believe that Holden is a more mature Seth
(althought
>the age discrepencies would disprove this theory)!...
>
>Before you dismiss this as just another of my pointless ramblings, didn't
>Buddy breifly mention Sherwood Anderson in Seymour?
>
>JD