Right On re HOLDEN!
And I think it was extremely perceptive to point out the connection with
recent ravings here that seemed to come right out of a Kraft dinner box....
YUCK!
I've also been bothered by the parallel ravings on the related topic of
reading and writing (...nobody's yet mentioned arithmetic, but I think
that's because no true bananafish ever had much time for the sciences....)
These are both Very Serious Strands. But I have to confess that I feel a
bit silly simply starting to think about them just now, since I thought
about them SO MUCH when I was a kid. Even the pop culture back then (which,
it will reveal my advancing age to announce WAS SO MUCH BETTER that it could
be haut culture now.... Sorry, kids.... That's another topic!)... Even the
pop culture back then was thick with it:
You read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost....
Can our malices be worthwhile?
Is the theatre really dead?
Anyway....
Since I've somehow managed to make a living with my pen (and my tonsils) for
much longer than I'd care to confess, I want to weigh in, finally, on the
writing and reading issue.
END of PREAMBLE.... (Smart folks will start reading NOW)
Today, on my way into work--which, as some fishes will know, includes a
ten-kilometre bike ride along the northern shore of Lake Ontario--I got to
thinking about a part of the bananafishbowl that I've never actually
visited. To tell you the truth, I'm even a little bit afraid about ever
going there. It's called the archive....
You see, from time to time, when what seems at the moment like a very clever
thought about Holden accidentally pops to the top of my consciousness, I say
to myself that I ought to post it on the list. Then a little voice in my
left ear (NB-Cecilia***) tells me that the thought is probably already
somewhere in the archive. There was a time, long, long ago, when I would
have had luxurious leisure time to while away the hours there. Time passes....
I've never read the archives. I probably never will. What does any of this
have to do with writing?
Let me say from the beginning that I've never read the post-Structuralists
(or whatever we're supposed to call all the bullshit that's usually badly
translated from the French) or any of the other latter-day literary
theorists who, for my money, quite obviously enjoy masturbation much more
than they enjoy sex. What a bunch of hooey!
(Maybe THIS is where the smart folks should start reading?)
Every writer MUST read. Saying anything less is almost like saying that no
writer needs to learn how to write.... Reductio ad absurdum.... Why bother
with spelling, and grammar? Forget language altogether.... Fuck, that guy
over there in the corner sounds like a Great Grunter!
Other writers teach you how to write. It's a very strange school, the
school of writers.... There's always a bizarre group of students--especially
in the early years. But what a faculty! And every professorial door is
open 24-hours a day for every student! In fact, one of the great
dangers--for would-be writers--is that they linger too long with Professor
Salinger.... or Professor Shakespeare.... or Professor Tolstoy.....
The library is another danger. It contains all the works of all the
professors.... It also contains student theses (often rhymes with
feces).... Some students who go there get mired down in the slop pit of
other students' theses. The worst of these poor souls are called
Sectionmen.... Sectionmen deserve everybody's deepest pity....
Student writers who use the library wisely will not get bogged down or
intimidated by what they find there. What they learn will inform their
conversations with other students, and allow them to learn even more
efficiently from the great professors....
This has gone too far. Smart fishes should start reading NOW! I'm off to
the archives...
Cheers,
Paul
>
>The messages of recent days from our teenagers bananafishers, discussing
>things like majoring in philosophy and feeling alienated by phony peers,
>have me thinking about dear Holden and what to make of his meanderings.
>
>Holden's preoccupation with phonies (which implies, of course, that some
>things are actually real), coupled with his chronic disappointment in the
>world and its occupants strike me as symptoms of adolescent idealism. This
>idealism is probably what makes Holden so endearing. Most of us can identify
>with his disillusionment. However, idealism leads him, inevitably I think,
>to his breakdown.
>
>Anyone who becomes engrossed by Salinger should, in my opinion, follow up
>with a heavy dose of Shakespeare. Old Bill celebrates the whole of humanity,
>including the phonies, lechers, clowns, and cut-throats. Singling out
>phonies seems like a waste of time once you discover that all the world's a
>stage.
>
>JD is a god man, an ideal man, and as such, has a natural disdain for our
>lowly species. JD's writing is brilliant, beautiful, but it's a temple of
>loneliness.
>
>-Sean
>
>
>
>