Subject: Re: Consummations
From: William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 18 2000 - 14:05:26 EST
Dear All, I respectfully disagree with the drift that Seymour is a failed
personality and that Buddy may be more admirable if also more
pedestrian. I might disagree by drawing them together as though they were
the author's character--as if a text could write and be itself
simultaneously (I tend to read SAI this way), and I might also suggest
that Seyymour's personality begins with his death. Negative
capability...was that Keats or Shelly?...and as we "remember" him through
Buddy's lens we don't let the fact that he is an imagined character slow
us down. For me, Seymour's personality is workings because Salinger has
given us just enough to think he may have been a pretty enlightened
dude...I also buy into the family dynamic (as a self-imagined Glass
brother, I'll put myself somewhere between Seymour and Buddy but that's
not the point) and suggest that readers can "attach" themselves to the
glass family and see a family resmeblance that is really just another
illusive shell broadcasting greatest ocean hits from WJDS.(I generally
consider the Glass family better to be in than most others.)
The funny thing about this post (aside from parenthetical and metaphorical
bad taste--beat you to it Scottie!) is that I think I'm sensing some
sibbling rivalry here on bananafish as we talk about Seymour and
Buddy. The reason why this is funny (at least to/about me) is that I do
have problems withsibbling rivalry in my family and in my wife's family
as well. But the reason why it's applicable is that it makes me think
about the spiritual goals Buddy and Seymour shared as the basis for our
discussion...will
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