Subject: Re: Gee, I was so enjoying our inflated conversation about Modernism..
From: WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 28 1997 - 16:32:02 GMT
Matt, I've been chewing on this for a bit admittedly in part because G&B
are not my favorite salinger critics (Warren French and J Wenke are!)
and in part to ask (shutters...) if Seymour is gay, is he incestuous as
well? Whenever critics slam salinger, they call the glass family
incestuous and I just don't see it--not even when boo boo "put a wild hand
inside the seat of his trousers, startling the boy considerably, but
almost immediately withdrew it and decorously tucked in his shirt for
him."
The love I read in Salinger says less about sexuality than in most modern
and postmodern texts (i think...)
John Wenke probably gave me a fine focus with his conclusion of his
essay in studies in short fiction, "Sergeant X, Esme`, and the meaning of
words.: here it is:
For Esme--With Love and Squalor "addresses one of the central problems of
Sainger's fiction in particular and modern literature in general--the
problem of finding valid forms of communication--at the same time that the
story suggests that love is the force which animates expression. In a
story in which love ultimately triumphs, the relationship between the
narrator and Esme` embodies a beautiful, if tenuous example of how
individuals might pass through squalor to love, achieving meaningful,
redemptive expresson even though the successful uses of language are a
constant reminder of its general failure."
Despite my belief that seymour probably isn't gay, I myself love my gay
and lesbian friends and hope to not blur any lines between interpretation
and my belief and hopes for sexual equality and freedom.
will
On Thu, 27 Feb 1997, Matt Kozusko wrote:
>
> Gwynn and Blotner (my favorite Salinger critics, as you all know by now)
> have suggested that Seymour himself is gay. Or at least that he has a
> a terrible time with phallic fixations. And, like all good
> psychocritics, who never fail to put libido (heavy libido) before
> sexual orientation, they blur the distinctions--they blur the possiblity
> of disticntions--between heterosexual and homosexual. The sexual subject
> is infinitely more important than the sexual object, which allows the
> role of sexual object to be filled by just about anyone or anything.
>
> In a strange (inverted) sense, i'm inclined to agree with their approach
> to Salinger. That is, extinguish the libido altogether, and you are left
> with the same problem. The sexual object becomes all-consuming, and the
> subject no longer insists on his own desires. Of course, the object also
> becomes less sexually charged (much less sexually charged) the further you
> move towards God-love (ie, the further you move into the Glass family).
>
> ?
>
> ----------------------------
> mkozusko@virtual.park.uga.edu
>
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