Re: JD Salinger and Kurt Cobain

Hi Levi,

Putting aside some of the goofy stuff in the article (Courtney Love is about
as far from Dorothy Parker as it is possible for one human being to be from
another it seems to me) and not commenting on the strange and simplistic
notion that pop music stars are to us today the icons that novelists were to
another generation (really?), I did think that the Salinger / Cobain
comparison was an interesting one, especially in light of both men's obvious
double bind (the one Kafka exposes so perfectly in "Hunger Artist"). One on
the one hand, they both had to write and they both obviously needed readers,
felt compelled to be read, and on the other hand they both also seemed to
resent many of those readers and especially to resent the limits they felt
those readers and the institutions that came between their readers and their
work placed on them. I think of the hunger artist's resentment of his guards
and of the Impresario who makes him stop starving himself after 40 days,
although the artist knows he can go on much longer, because his audience
would begin to lose interest. (What would it be today? 40 minutes?) I
think Kurt dreamed of being a rock star but genuinely hated the dream as well
as the reality of being a rock star. I think he also hated himself for
dreaming it.

In any case, what got me started thinking about this was the recent
publication, in full-size, detailed, glossy reproductions, of Kurt's personal
journals. I can think of nothing he would have hated more (and also perhaps
loved to some degree). I can imagine the thought of it would have seriously
disturbed him. And that got me wondering, how would JD react? Can you
imagine his ghost stumbling, in a local bookstore, upon full, glossy
reproductions of his private, handwritten journals? Not even drafts of
novels, cleaned up and arranged and published, the way Max did with Franz's
papers, but just his own notes scribbled to himself in spiral bound
notebooks, reproduced in his own hand.

I think the shudder would be metaphysical indeed.

All the best,

--John

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Received on Sat Dec 14 15:37:12 2002