Subject: Re: 2 Q's
From: Benjamin Samuels (madhava@sprynet.com)
Date: Thu Feb 24 2000 - 10:20:00 EST
>>>
> Jim, I'm confused...though mindful of Salinger, I try and read his stories
> without interpreting them as being about him or thinking what he intended
> them to mean. However, I am interested in the author...does that nail
> down my position? In terms of my scholarship, I've shown the most
> interest in Salinger's critics and avoided any "snooping" into his
> personal life beyond anything made public. I'm not certain, but I"m
> guessing we can both agree that Salinger's fiction is where the real
> action is, will
>>>
Yet, I have to say that as I read the the beginning of SAI for the first
time a couple years yesterday, and the first time with a bigger over all
picture of salinger (and his desire for privacy), his works, and their
(personal) meanings to me, I noticed with interest a part from page 143
which I will quote some bits of later. He (Buddy? Salinger?) is talking
about students (or criticism in general) and how they are often more drawn
to the life of the poet (Artist) than the artists work. Then after
complaining about this for a bit, he basicly admits to having a lot of
sympathy with this attraction to the Artists life. After all, this story
turns into a gross indulgence in just that sort of thing from Buddy.
"It was my intention, right here, to tell the readerthat when, or if, young
people should stop by to see me about Seymours life or death, a curious
personal affliction of my own, alas, would make such an audience utterly
unfeaible.....[he has two entertaining reaons why he would have turned them
away which he realizes aren't true enough, but...] the terrible and
undiscountable fact has just reached me, between paragraphs, that I *yearn*
to talk, to be querried, to to be interrogated, about this particular dead
man." I'll just quote the two other phrases that appear in italics in the
paragraph: "*O- let them come*" and the paragraph actually ends with "*the
old red capet is out*"
RHTRBCaSAI p.142-143
It's hard not to see this as a bit of an invitation to interact with
Salinger not just through his text but through his life as well. So will,
I can't see how you can read Salinger, or, for that matter, anyone without
thinking what it means.
And to follow along the lines of my favorite reading of Salinger which I
posted at length about a couple days ago, Salinger wouldn't be interested in
any creep putting their nose against his window while standing on his
gardenias, (though he might just understand that when his ego is boundless
enough), he *enjoins* us to ask him about God. God is to Salinger as
Seymour is to Buddy goes my favorite reading and so the invitation of Buddys
for people to ask him about Seymour is an invitation of Salingers to ask him
about God, (or Beauty, or Spirit, or the Old Man of the Mountain that
pursues him)
I don't know the history or the circumstances that led Salinger into his
present privacy and notoriety for it (though I admit to an avid curiosity
about it because I want to hear all about that Old Man of the Mountain that
pursues him, not even really because I'm so interested in him, but the for
the completely selfish reason that I'm interested in the Old Man of the
Mountain that pursues me!) but I could guesse, being as familiar as I am
with American culture. Anyway, I lost track of any other point I might have
been heading for, so,
With Love,
Madahava
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