Re: Zooey rediscovered

AntiUtopia@aol.com
Thu, 05 Feb 1998 07:59:42 -0500 (EST)

In a message dated 98-02-05 00:18:19 EST, you write:

<< I've read this email again because of the great topics brought up by Jim
and
 AntiUtopia,and I was thinking,"Is there something wrong with living your
whole
 life with the youthfulness of Zooey?"That book is fiction.Isn't that a frame
 of mind that we've all had?But we left it to stay in line.Couldn't you just
be
 out of line and just be like that?I don't find anything really immature about
 Zooey.He just can't stand people.And a lot of the time I can't stand people
 either.But I appreciate the fat lady,and so does Jim,and I even think that
 AntiUtopia still might at times.Maybe a few people on this list can explain
 what I'm trying to ask? >>

Ok, let's get our characters straight.  I am AntiUtopia.  My name is Jim.  You
are reading posts that are an interchange between myself and Scottie Bowman.
So there :)

I think both within Buddhism and Christianity we would be expected to outgrow
Zooey's youthful intolerance.  Salinger seemed to write within this context,
and the very pressures of the story seem to point to a strong need in his
central characters to overcome the pressures they experienced as a result of
their youthful intolerance.  And speaking as a 33 year old (ripe to be
crucified :) ), looking back I see how self-righteous and narrow minded I was
at 18-26, approx.  I wasn't a bad or evil person.  I am probably more so now.
But my experience was limited, and even though I read extensively for years my
view and understanding of truth was pretty narrow too.  Don't get me wrong,
I'm no relativist in morals or in ontology.  But I have a wider vision now.

And then I still hang about college aged people through my continued
association with college.  I see very intelligent kids with narrow, provincal
attitudes.  They may be self righteous about their Marxism, Feminism,
Materialism, Postmodernism, Victimism, or Christianity, but they are still
self righteous and narrow.  It's just part of being young.  We see Some things
so clearly we forget there may be more we're not seeing.  Then as we
eventually see more, we learn...

I see both Franny and Zooey's characters as being right around that age, and
struggling with those issues.  They are more advanced than I was.  I didn't
struggle.  I was just an intolerant jerk.  I still am in some ways.  But I
have grown enough to understand at least some things in retrospect--just a
part of growing up.

You post makes a great point, however.  If we legitimately expect Franny and
Zooey to grow into love of others regardless of their intellectual and
aesthetic sensibilities, and be tolerant, shouldn't we extend the same to them
in their struggles?  I wonder if Salinger ever learned it works this way too?

Jim