Re: Salinger's world
Camille Scaysbrook (c_scaysbrook@yahoo.com)
Thu, 12 Aug 1999 10:36:14 +1000
Scottie wrote:
> '... Part of what fascinates me about them is really that:
> we cannot *really* be sure of what is superficial and
> what is not in ourselves and in others ...'
>
> I think that's the most excruciating thing of all.
> Their comparatively rare moments of self-mockery
> only serve to deepen the dreadful self-seriousness
> with which they all they take themselves.
Yes, that is a good point. I think the reason we cannot find resonances in
characters such as Zooey and Teddy that we can in Holden is that they are
perhaps *too* self aware. Part of the fun of learning about a character is
seeing very obviously the parts that they can't see themselves - something
especially pertinent to perceiving Holden. They say that people are
actually four people (it's called the Window of Knowledge or something like
that) - the things that everyone knows about you, the things that you know
but everyone else doesn't, the things everyone else knows but you don't,
and the things that nobody knows. The Glasses seem to know everything about
themselves - Seymour even knows when he's going to die for Chrissake!
It's also true that Salinger talks primarily in the voice of the
enfranchised white person, but he has at least flirted with racial and
disadvantaged subjects, such as in `Blue Melody'. But it's largely the view
of an enfranchised white person, no escaping that. Equally true, sadly,
that the fact that we all have ready access to email means that pretty much
all of us fall into that Enfranchised category, too. They say it's only the
very rich and the very poor who have enough time on their hands to ponder
spiritual matters. I guess the poor have more things to worry about than
mere phoniness.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
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