New Topic (was: Salinger and Lit Theory)

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Sat, 06 Dec 1997 22:12:12 -0800 

> The reverence listmembers here have for Salinger is pretty interesting.  In
> the past I've subscribed to several listserves about literature in general,
> and particular authors, and I've NEVER seen the type of feeling for the
> subject that I see on this list.  Never.

I'll second that notion.  There's a kind of reverence here that's sometimes
good and occasionally not so good (if it prevents us from making sensible
conversation).

> Don't get me wrong, people on other listserves have their ideas and get
> defensive when other people disagree.  It's amazing how much people will
>shout
> others down in the name of free speech, or enforce moral judgments against
> those they perceive as judgmental.  On those listserves, though, their ideas
> about the literature are what's important--the attachment is to their ideas,
> not to the literature itself.

We get that here, too; we really get a wide mix of responses, depending on
who happens to be active at any given time.  Will pointed out a day or two
ago that the pendulum has moved away from reading critical analyses.  It
really goes back and forth.  I admit that on some days we get messages that
say, "I just read Nine Stories.  What should I read next?"; that's not
always the most interesting topic to me, but I like to think that some of
today's beginners are tomorrow's creative literary analysts.  But I like to
think there's room for all of it here.  I truly hope that a potential
writer here won't be scared off due to some mistaken idea of what is
"acceptable" to the list.

WARNING: NEW TOPIC APPROACHING

There's another interesting tangent.  Many students in high school (or
earlier) who study literature are encouraged to read the text as the
teacher says it should be read; a couple of people who have written
privately to me have said that reading Catcher for school was the first
time when the assigned book seized their imaginations and got them to think
that their interpretations were at least as good as the teacher's, and
might even be superior.

I find that intriguing.

--tim