Re: Why Salinger Intrigues Me
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Tue, 25 Aug 1998 15:58:30 -0400
Lomanno wrote:
> I am a graduate student, and I'm thinking of writing my thesis
> on why we as readers feel the need to "know" the writer in order to
> understand and appreciate his writing.
What class of people constitutes "we as readers"?
As readers, we understand and appreciate a writer's writing, which
engenders the impulse to know the writer. Of course, once we know the
writer, once we discover some little bit about his personal (that is to
say private, or not explicitly offered and owned as his own in his
fiction) life or feelings, we seek opportunities to reconcile the
information with the writing. Thus, readers want to "know" writers in
order to confirm their readings of the writing.
But once you begin to look to the writer's life for details that will
inform (as opposed to confirm) your reading, you become a critic. When
you seek biographical details about Salinger's own growing involvement
in Advaita Vedanta between the years of 1949 and 1953 in order to
clarify for yourself or for others the spiritual evolution of Salinger's
Seymour, the Vedic quarterback for Team Glass, you are a critic. A
tidy, useful little distinction between amateur readers and critical
readers.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu