Re: BAND OF SALINGER'S SOLDIERS
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Wed, 10 Dec 1997 14:53:46 -0800
> Actually a number of famous writers have been part of the project and
> I've been asked to write the forward to the book--there's already been
> some publisher interest and my guess is that when joyce maynard comes out
> with her salinger book, this book will cook with it...pointing to Stephen
> Foskett's page as evidence of this list's intelligence may have been true
> a while ago, but I see less of his kind of scholarship on our list and I
> think that putting down Chris Kubica's project as being inferior to us is
> false snobbery. Will
I don't know if it's a matter of being a snob; I do know that it sounds
like a collection of letters to Santa Claus. (I'm away from home and at a
hotel, where my connectivity is spotty, and I haven't been able to maintain
a connection to the page, yet.)
If you contribute, Will, I know it would be a thoughtful and respectful
foreword. And (sorry) I maintain that the selection forwarded here is ...
embarrassing. I'd rather have a hundred notes of enthusiastic response
from new readers than a Santa Claus letter.
It is true that this list has changed, slowly, to something more chatty
than it once was. That's something we can collectively change, though, if
we readers have that interest. Where are the critical readers, who want to
go beyond their initial enthusiasm and demonstrate that they have grasped
what they have read and can put forward a couple of new ideas? Or have
read some Salinger criticism and want to argue in favor of a new way of
interpreting the text? Enthusiasm is one thing. Sensitive analysis is
another. (But it can follow an enthusiastic introduction.)
Every so often, someone drags another writer in and discusses a Salinger
story or passage in the context of the other writer's work. (I think *my*
first post to the list was an analysis of the Seymour of "Bananafish" with
the Nick Adams of Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River." Though I would love
to see more of that activity here, fiction is what I prefer to write.)
Anyone up to the task? There are plenty of writer victims from which to
choose. I'll toss out a few from work I've read or reread lately (and
forgive me if I sound like a schoolmarm!):
* The wounded women in Mary Gaitskill's stories, as collected in "Bad
Behavior": since we all need to find ways to cope with circumstances, how
does a character in a Gaitskill story (you pick one) cope with her
circumstances, compared to the damaged Sgt. X of "Esme"?
* Since we talk about lost innocence and escape here, off and on, has
anyone read Lorrie Moore's novel, "Who Will Run the Frog Hospital"? What
narrative techniques work for Berie that would never work for Holden
Caulfield?
* Argue why the author of the (originally anonymous) story in Esquire, "For
Rupert -- With No Promises" could truly be J.D. Salinger.
* Disagree with the previous item, and demonstrate why the author could not
be J.D. Salinger.
* Introduce us to a recent novel you've read that captures the spirit of
its time the way "Catcher" was a product of its time.
* Pick your favorite uncollected Salinger story, and show us why it should
have been included in Nine Stories. If it had to bump a story (to keep the
count at nine), which should it have displaced? And why?
* Essayist and short-story writer Rick Bass, in his book "Winter," lives
with his wife in significantly greater solitude and physical separation
from the world than Buddy Glass. Consider whether the character we know as
"Buddy Glass" could have survived that first winter in the Montana Rick
Bass portrays. How would you imagine him surviving? Why might he flee
back to Manhattan? Why might he not?
===
I would love to hear opinions on any or all of these, or any other
analysis. It would be light-years beyond us resorting to name-calling
about projects we don't like and resorting to what Hemingway called "the
dirty, easy labels," which are so easy to attach to books we don't know --
or respect.
Will: you're interested in how and why people turn into serious Salinger
readers. How do you nurture the interest that develops in a person exposed
to Salinger for the first time in the context of a classroom? What are
some of your critical approaches in teaching Salinger in a classroom? (I'm
serious. Your posts are well-reasoned and thought-provoking, and have
always been an asset here.)
Some of these ideas may be off the wall, but if just one percent of our
subscribers should want to grab an idea and run with it, we'd end up with
about 2.5 posts!
--tim