Re: what, exactly...?
J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Sun, 06 Dec 1998 13:15:47 -0500 (EST)
"Uninteresting" is a word so subjective it's virtually meaningless.
"Irrelevant" may be better, but to use that word we'd have to justify it
first from the text.
I guess it's obvious to me that Holden is "deliberately" addressing
someone. In a sense, ALL novels and ALL poems--ALL works, for that
matter, address Someone. Directly or indirectly.
Now, Holden is "deliberately" addressing someone. The next question to
ask is, "Is it a specific 'someone' or a general 'someone'?" I've just
finished reading Jonathan Carroll's Outside the Dog Museum--like Catcher,
it's a first person account addressing the reader. But it's not
addressing any particular reader that I can tell. And I've finished not
too long ago John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. Another first person
account telling a story to someone. But it isn't addressing a particular
reader to me either.
Holden's first person account is different. Holden seems to be
addressing a particular reader that has known expectations. That's why
the question is interesting to me. It doesn't really seem to fit the
paradigm you describe at the end of your post like Irving's or Carroll's
work does. It stands out from these two. Makes me want to sniff around
:)
Jim
On Sat, 05 Dec 1998 18:02:10 -0500 Paul Janse <PJanse@compuserve.com>
writes:
>The question of who Holden is addressing seems to me very
>uninteresting.
>The fact that he *is* addressing *someone is*. To me it is just Holden
>Caulfield's and Salinger's variant of the very old literary device:
>"List=
>en
>to this, I am telling you a tale", which gives the story a special
>kind o=
>f
>truthfullness, well, I don't know whether this is the right word, in
>any
>case it gives the story a special tone. Did anyone ever read Tolstoy's
>'Kreutzer Sonate'? This story is told in a train by a man to his
>accident=
>al
>fellow passenger. Same effect. The question who this other man is, is
>beside the point.
>
>Paul J.
>
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