Re: BAND OF SALINGER'S SOLDIERS

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Fri, 12 Dec 1997 01:56:40 -0500 

> It is a matter of snobery.  I don't think anyone posting these letters
>expects
> Salinger to read them.  Attacking the letters page, or people who write the
> letters is just a "we're better than you are" mentality.  Posting the letters
> is the same as posting to this mailing list, people are exploring their
> understanding of and connection to Salingers stories, demeaning them is
> demeaning yourself.

I've never bought into that notion, because while my self-esteem can have
its ups and downs, on the whole I don't gauge myself in this way; I think
it's fair to speak critically of a work and that by speaking truly and
honestly about it, you do not demean yourself or the work you're
discussing, if you are honest and sensible.  Any jackass can say: "This
SUCKS, huh-huh-huh-huh-heh-uh."  That's not such useful commentary.
Expressing dubious feelings for a book of letters that ask a writer for
help on a book report, or for the details of his life, though ... that's
something else.

The difference I see -- and I don't think it's a small difference -- is
that this list is a place where discussion happens.  I say something, you
may disagree, someone else may fault both of us, and someone who had never
before posted might chime in.

It's that last bit that counts.  One-way communication is, well, letters to
Santa Claus.  Or to Bill Clinton.  Frankly, I think that if that book were
published, Salinger might well read it.  Remember that in the past, when he
has been seriously profiled (e.g., the Life article), his unnamed but close
friends said that any kind of printed attention paid to him invariably set
him back *weeks*, because he read it and then he brooded over it.  Well,
"brooded" may not have been the literal word used, but that was the idea.

At any rate, the only reason I participate here is that I relish the
two-way nature of communications.  I don't expect people to agree all the
time; I enjoy sensible disagreement.  But I certainly didn't get a feeling
of that from the letters that were posted here.  Sometimes this forum is
useful and sometimes it's bantamweight.  But when it works well, we get
some good points from around the world (for instance, I lament the apparent
disappearance of Sonny from this list!) and from different perspectives
(such as in the last great "Is Franny Pregant?" debate).

My apologies to anyone who was offended.  Reading the small amount I saw
here, excerpted from the book of letters, and taking that as representative
of the whole work, made me feel as uncomfortable (and embarrassed on behalf
of the author[s]) as I felt when I read Nicholson Baker's "The Fermata," a
book that was intriguing but creepy.

If the book grows wings, more power to its authors and contributors.

--tim