Re: Salinger's world

Colin Pink (colin@cpink.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 13 Aug 1999 12:17:40 +0100 

Scottie's comments about JDS and his cosy world reminded me somewhat of
Sartre's criticism of the nouveau roman writers when, during the Vietnam
war, he said something along the lines of, It is impossible to read
Robbe-Grillet in S.E. Asia.  I think Sartre's comments were unfair
suggesting as they did that the only writing with moral integrity had to
be something that looked very like something by Jean-Paul Sartre.

I think writers try to interpret the world to themselves and their
readers in the only way they can.  And that way might involve writing
Catcher, or Jealousy, or Remembrance of Things Past, or even Roads to
Freedom.  Provided it is done with integrity I don't think there is
ultimately much to choose between these routes.  In fact of those listed
Roads to Freedom is probably the weakest in terms of literature.

I think it would be fair to say that JDS has a narrow range.  I'm not
sure how significant that is.  If one ploughs a narrow but deep furrow
maybe one can end up unearthing as many worms as covering the whole
field.  Most writers tend to be fairly limited in their subject matter
anyway, and a lot of great ones are none the worse for it.

I can never decide in my own mind whether JDS is a great minor writer or
just a great writer.  I suppose my doubts about his stature spring
partly from a concern over the narrowness of his range and the smallness
of his oeuvre so that one feels one doesn't have sufficient data to make
a judgment.

Maybe one shouldn't criticse a writer for what they haven't written.  I
do think JDS is at his glorious best when writing about people from his
own privileged background.  And on those rare occasions when he tries to
write about poor people, in 'Elaine' for instance, I don't think he
quite pulls it off.  That is certainly a weakness.

JDS was, of course, intimately associated with the New Yorker, and I
must say I find the fiction they currently publish usually has a rather
narrow range, a range rather similar to the work of JDS.  It is
interesting that JDS tended to dismiss his early fiction by saying that
it was written with the glossy magazine market in mind, whereas one
could say that the demands of the New Yorker perhaps shaped the style of
his later fiction even more strongly.  Or maybe the New Yorker style was
shaped by JDS?

-- 
Colin Pink