Re: new yorker

Camille Scaysbrook (c_scaysbrook@yahoo.com)
Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:27:59 +1000 

I was personally fascinated to compare the closest we'll probably ever get
to a Salingerian early draft (as opposed to Salingerian palimpsests in the
form of Inverted Forest, Teddy, et al) in the form of `Slight Rebellion off
Madison' and `I'm Crazy'. What came across in those two stories is
something very different to what I expected to find. Salinger obviously
knew exactly what he wanted to say, but didn't at that point quite know how
to say it. The apparent randomness of the book was obviously actually
strongly controlled by the author. In the two short stories, we get little
drifts of what later becomes the spoken - and unspoken - themes of Catcher,
and certain incidents (for example, Holdens' feeling like he is
disappearing) that are expanded upon and put into a different context in
the book. Whole characters never made it into the book, such as Holden's
baby sister and his black maid (now wouldn't she have opened up a whole new
lot of arguments? We have already noted that Salinger concentrates mainly
on the Enfranchised Young'Un) I found it fascinating stuff, and a real
insight into Salinger's modus operandi, at least in that period of his
life. However, I wouldn't attribute the differences to an outside editor,
I'd imagine they were Salinger's own process of elimination and compaction
of material.

I wouldn't mind seeing that early draft of `Between the Lines' myself!

Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com

Will wrote:
> I studied with a scholar who compared different drafts of _Between the
> Acts_ by Virginia Woolf...for those wanting to dance deeply between the
> lines following this work was like bycycle drafting behind a fine
> writer...personally, I don't believe the editing mechanics of salinger's
> are a huge part of the man's art.  I think he's pretty careful about his
> work to begin with, but then again I'm also daft enough to think
> "Hapworth" is well worthwhile.  

Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com


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