Subject: JDS, Modernism (was Eric's sexuality)
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@virtual.park.uga.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 26 1997 - 16:56:04 GMT
On Wed, 26 Feb 1997 gauthier@SLU.EDU wrote:
[in reply to an earlier comment made by someone else]
> The early Salinger I would classify as modernist. It might help to think
> of modernisms, however, rather than a monolithic modernism. You aren't
> contending that he is post-modern are you? If so, how?
There's room for such a contention. The post "Zooey" stories abound with
meta-moments that stretch the boundaries of any modernist paradigm.
Certainly any postmodern moments in Salinger are only minor departures
from modernism, but they are departures indeed--they make that crucial
leap. I suppose we'll immediately run into trouble agreeing on the where
boudnary between mod and postmod is--the boundary over which the leap is
made--but that there is a boundary of some sort doesn't seem to pose a
problem.
I want to equate the boundary loosely with the "boundary"
between structuralim and poststructuralism and suggest that there is a
moment at which the "structurality" of modernism had to begin to be
thought (analagous to Derrida's "event" in "Structure Sign and Play").
JDS's later narratives work around that moment, with the mass-confusion
of boundaries between writer/narrator, narrator/character, and
character/character. Buddy standing in for Seymour but also
representing/speaking for Seymour ("Hapworth," journal entries, letters),
Buddy standing in for Salinger himself, Salinger deriving Seymour largely
from his own childhood, etc. (there is much more here). An epistomological
headache always equals postmodernism!
Matt
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