Re: Kings in the back row

WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:40:23 -0700 (MST) 

I think Jonathan makes some fine points here--I have always refused to
make distinctions between fictive worlds and Salinger's just makes more
sense to me than most...in other words, I think reality is overated and
enjoy picking up on stuff from my favoite folks, flesh aside. will

On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Jonathan Moritz wrote:

> Jane's habit of leaving her kings in the back row in checkers, and Holden's
> appreciation of this, might give us a model for how I believe we might show
> more reserve in going on the attack/defense of topics, particularly those
> not directly Salinger related.  Digressions permitted, of course, but
> perhaps as simple offerings (like Basho and hailstones!), rather than
> extended arguments. I'm sure many, like me, are rare contributors, who tend
> to read and run -- or simply run.
> 
> Two questions:
> (1) How much do we act out Salinger characters in our own lives, and find
> pleasure in little happenings, say, checkers, or feet in elevators?
> (Off-line link to religious discussion of how a text might be a model or
> fundamental basis for one's own life.)  If so, a related question is, does
> this concern us when people say our favourite character never grew up, was
> crazy, or was a suicide/killer (Seymour, Muriel?, Lennon)
> 
> I find I act out Salinger characters all the time, with little cause for
> concern. The other night, I arrived at a party, it was just getting dark
> here in sunny old Hobart ( Will -- Hobart College narrowly survived recent
> bushfires), and there were five people sitting on a verhandah, smoking like
> chimneys over a few drinks. The conversation between the 6 of us is pretty
> ordinary semi-gutter humour, until this stunningly attractive Sally starts
> the ball rolling with a comment that brilliant people are either successful
> or else go crazy, and I commented "what about Sylvia Plath... she was all
> three", and for a good 5 minutes of uninterrupted eye contact,  an intense
> conversation between Sally and I ensues about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
> and the famous story about how they first met at a party, and though he had
> a girlfriend, he kissed her, and she passionately bit him on the cheek and
> drew blood!  In the light of day, I'm pretty sure the Sally I met is like
> Holden's Sally Hayes -- an attracted but somewhat incompatible match.  And
> while my friend and I were playing checkers on the verandah, it made me
> think of how Holden's Jane is somewhat like this other girl I know. That's
> another story -- but the point is not only do I act out Salinger
> characters, but I see other people in connection to Salinger characters.
> 
> (2) How much of Buddy's admiration for Seymour do we share?  Are we really
> made to feel that Seymour is brilliant, successful, and crazy?
> 
> I suspect most of us have a lot of time for Zooey, and probably all of us
> for Buddy, otherwise we wouldn't have survived his narration. But as we
> read the stories, do we find the focal point is Seymour, or rather Buddy's
> feelings towards Seymour, expressed and elaborated upon, wrestling with
> ambivalent feelings?  This, I think, returns us to Alsen's (Glass Stories
> as a Composite Novel) two ways of reading the stories... I think the order
> of publication, expressing the development of Buddy's feelings after his
> brother's death, is more interesting than attempting a chronological order
> of, say, Seymour's life.
> 
> 
>