Subject: Re: Smoking !
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 09 2000 - 14:37:53 GMT
On Sat, Dec 09, 2000 at 06:46:33PM +0000, Rob Riss wrote:
> This is a pretty random question, but something i must ask. In every story
> in 9 stories, raise high & seymour, franny & zooey, catcher, and now the
> young folks, there is someone smoking cigarettes. And in a few cases, Zooey
> & For Esme, among others, there is some HEAVY smoking that is just plain
> gross.
>
> Does anybody know why Salinger does this? Maybe he smokes himself?
Salinger smoked (I don't know if he still does), and culturally it was
a much more prevalent habit than it is today. I think it was an
observed detail, the way in so much of Cheever men wore hats, because
that's what men did in the days when Cheever wrote his classic stories.
I don't think there's any great symbolic meaning to it, though.
--tim o'connor
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