Re: Laughing Boy


Subject: Re: Laughing Boy
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 19 2000 - 03:11:13 GMT


Cecilia, I think your scholarship is more than interesting...I think
there are enough "coincidences" in your research today to point to La
Farge as an influence on Salinger's work. You have really found
something I think is very significant and important. I can't follow
this trail now because of previous commitments so I'll hope for more
good info from you...will

>Good morning,
>
>This morning, I found the following entry in my daily literary calendar:
>
>99 years ago (1901),
>
> American anthropholgist, short-story writer, and novelist who
> acted as a spokesman for Native Americans through his political
> actions and his fiction, Oliver La Farge is born in New York.
> His first novel, _Laughing Boy_ (1929) will be a poetic but
> realistic story of the clash of cultures.
>
>A man named La Farge who wrote a story called _Laughing Boy_? Is
>this as obvious a connection as it seems?
>
>
>I checked Amazon.com for a summary of the novel, which leaves a
>great deal to be desired:
>
>This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel captures the essence of the
>Southwest in the early 1900s-and depicts a young Native American
>couple experiencing all the uncertainties and joys of first love.
>Laughing Boy is one of the most powerful novels in American fiction.
>
>And another website gives a scholarly discourse on La Farge and
>_Laughing Boy_:
>
>http://www.richmond.edu/faculty/ASAIL/SAILns/102.html
>D'Arcy McNickle may be closest to a proper evaluation of La Farge's
>seeming dislocation from his background when he expresses the
>opinion that La Farge's accomplishment in Laughing Boy is that of a
>clever interpreter, whose "artistry consisted in blending . . .
>essentially esoteric information in a narrative carried along by
>imagery drawn from the usages of polite society of the Eastern
>seaboard. . . . He brought outlandish subject {72} matter into the
>realm of acceptable experience.
>
>"Outlandish subject matter into the realm of acceptable experience."
>Yes, I can see that.
>
>The book has a character named Wounded Face, Laughing Boy's uncle
>who tries to prevent his marriage to Slim Girl, who has been
>educated outside of their reservation and therefore considered an
>American, someone who is outside of their culture. Wounded Face
>warns Laughing Boy not to marry her, for it will mean his
>destruction.
>
>Now, I don't know anything more about the book, and I'm wondering if
>anyone else does. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to get my
>hands on it pretty soon. It's a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel,
>published around the time period when "The Laughing Man" must have
>taken place.
>
>Interesting, no?
>
>Regards,
>Cecilia.
>_________________________________________________________________
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-- 
Will Hochman
Assistant Professor of English & Composition Co-Coordinator
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515
203 392 5024

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