Re: pregnant
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Tue, 17 Feb 1998 22:54:25 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 98-02-17 22:27:57 EST, you write:
<< don't think the strong feeling I got out of this story was so much in
the *origin* of the crisis, but in the skilfull means Zooey acts out.
Why, sophisticated girls can't be pregnant? Do we fathom the depth of
our pity according to the particular inconvenience Franny is going
through? If so, F & Z would be just a religious discourse put into short
story form, in which we feel compassion for Franny because we want
ourselves to identify with her high ideals. I don't get it that way.
Salinger *is* able to do great things with mother-son relationships
(take Boo Boo), so it's not a question of biology against more literary
motivations. In fact, I think her son's particularly trivial motive for
a crisis (slight misunderstanding) is trying to express human suffering
for itself rather than something with elaborate causes.
>>
hmm, this is interesting. The thing with me--the problem I had, in part, with
the pregnancy explanation--is that Salinger/Buddy is so Self Conscious and
deliberate about his/their art. Just read the opening comments in Zooey.
Someone complained about the diction in "Zooey." Buddy, in fact, complained
about the diction in "Zooey." You say, as Buddy said, that it's a love
story...but who are the lovers? Not Lane and Zooey. Not Franny and Zooey.
Perhaps the family members themselves--Mother, Franny, Zooey, and the not
present but very significant Seymour and Buddy. But at the same time, the
story **is** about a spiritual crisis, a problematic theme, in Buddy's
estimation, for those writing to Buddy's audience. Who are the lovers? God
thru the individual human and humanity? That has to be at least part of the
answer, incorporating both the spiritual theme and the human interactions at
once...
It's not that pregnancy or anorexia are trivial in themselves. I think my
original post mentioning the interaction between a woman's mind/body/emotions
was intended to steer around that impression. It's just that these causes
seem artificial within the context of the story. Read Franny closely. Every
Single Time she starts feeling faint, you'll notice it's immediately After she
starts being honest about her disillusionment with college, professors, her
friends, her acquaintances, and Lane. Every time. If I had the book next to
me I'd point out the instances. Saying she passed out and was moody because
she was pregnant (and being the father of four, that's a perfectly plausible
reason to me--not an old stereotype. Sorry, but people have known for
centuries what pregnant women go through. You don't need to be late 20th
century to figure that one out) is not insignificant in itself, but
insignificant within the context of the story. And that's a problem, because,
as I mentioned, Salinger/Buddy is so self conscious about his/their art...
Now, I have a question. Just what the heck **is** F and Z? We have a
fictional author--Buddy Glass--writing a "real" history (real to him, that
is). But Buddy is himself a fictional character, so his "real" history is, to
us, fiction. How do we approach this work?
If Buddy were a real person writing a real history, I wouldn't be looking for
meaning in the details. People get pregnant and sick in real life--sometimes
it has some cosmic significance (detail working toward elaborating a theme),
sometimes it doesn't. But in a fictional world, well, we have different
criteria. In good art it better mean something more to the story than just a
means to pull heart strings. And when we're dealing with Salinger, well,
we're dealing with someone who pretty obviously knew Exactly what he was doing
and how he sounded as he wrote. So I expect more from my details. I see a
tight focus in these stories. I see the hand of an author working
deliberately and consciously. So I don't expect something like a pregnancy to
be treated elliptically (it would be a big enough deal to be mentioned
outright, if it were true), or to be included for no apparent reason...
Jim