Re: Mr. Antolini

Lagusta Pauline Yearwood (ly001f@uhura.cc.rochester.edu)
Thu, 04 Dec 1997 21:31:28 -0500 (EST) 

peggy, 

ick...literary theory talk. yes, it gets irritating, and tiring and
sometimes heartbreaking. yep, i'm an english major. and every once in a
while i have a day diseased with theory when i just want to go home and
read not in a deconstructionalist, post-structuralist (actually...aren't
they the same thing? ahh! see, i can't stop it!), structuralist, ANY way,
just READ. and sometimes i can't, (i don't think i'll ever read a poem
again with out the phrase "patriarchical binary oppositions" popping up 
at least once. it's terrible.) but i am learning to trade that for the
advantages learning about all this has given me. 

i've thought about it *a lot* and i think there are advantages. i think
the purpose to all this is to gain some kind of deeper understanding of
the language. i mean, the people who created these theories obviously
loved language. and i have actually gotten to a place where i let the
theory make me love the text more, and understand it in all kinds of ways. 
i think it's so interesting because it's almost like a kind of
secret language in that if you don't know it you can still like the text 
but if you do you can understand and see it on all kinds of levels.
well, ok, so it's not like a secret language. maybe it's like...LSD?
in any case, i think there is a place for discussions of theory on this
list, simply because it's another way to see salinger. 

and the thing about the person leaving the list because it got too
painful: that was a friend of mine, and i mentioned it, and i kind of
think about it a lot. i can see becoming fed up with the literary theory
aspect of it (although we hardly ever talk about lit. theory), but i think
the reason she left was much harder to explain. 

i think it has something
to do with not being able to talk about something you love so deeply.
wanting to let something stay inside, like a secret, a love so deep.
salinger is like new years eve for me: very quiet, very personal, and it
just makes me want to go sit in a corner and write in my journal. and talk
about it a little as possible, please. it's sacred, almost. another year
is passing.  this man wrote these books. it's to beautiful and
heartwrenching to even talk about it. 

i read this quote in french class a few weeks ago about how something was 
"unbreathably beautiful" (of course, it was in french...) and i think
it's something like that. just hold your breath and think about it, don't 
trespass on it even with your breath. 

i can't speak for her, but that is why i come home sometimes, some very 
quiet-feeling days, and immediately delete all the bananafish emails. i
love this list, but because it's salinger and it's so personal sometimes i
can't bear to listen to what others have to say about it. 

ok, is it finals time or what? what am i doing, sitting here spinning off
email?

lagusta

On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Peggy F. Jean-Louis wrote:

> A few days ago, I read a post from someone who mentioned a former
> Bananafish who had left the list because dicussing something that was so
> personal to her had become too painful. At the time, I didn't really
> understand what she meant by that, but after reading the post that follows
> this comment, I am beginning to see what how that could have happened and
> wonder if I shouldn't follow her example and end my brief association with
> this list as well.
> 
> Peggy 
> 

> > 
> > eh, what seemed to me to be happening in your post was not that you were
> > taking out of the text things that were there, but importing life experiences
> > into the text.  A husband and wife kissing in public profusely yet staying in
> > separate rooms in their home is in the text.  The "meaning" of this pointing
> > to homosexuality is not in the text--that comes from life experiences, and
> > that can be valid or not valid as far as the text goes.
> > 
> > That's why I said we had to look across several works to get the possible
> > meaning "in this particular instance."  I didn't mean that to apply across
> > the boards.  Since I think the message communicated in our text here is
> > ambiguous, we may need to look beyond this one text.
> > 
> > What your English teacher was describing was Reader Response theory, and not
> > all hold to it.  And even among RR critics, relatively few would say all
> > readings of a text are equally valid.  Not all readings of a text are equally
> > valid, and just because we "see" something there that doesn't mean it's
> > there.  What we most often see is ourselves--that's why we read--but that may
> > not necessarily be a commentary on the novel or story we are reading, but on
> > ourselves...
> > 
> > Jim
> > 
> 
>