jim wrote: >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? So, I don't remember this too well, but last semester I studied Barthes and the Mythologies, and the teacher mentioned the "vanishing author" theory really briefly. Does anyone know more about this? Seems it could apply here in kind of an interesting way. Looking at the stories as written by Buddy, with the knowledge we have of his character and family, contrasts with looking at them as just another story by Salinger, but also with the awareness of Salinger's other stories about the Glasses. What about looking at it in an authorial vacuum, as it were? Is that what Barthes was all about? emily john, how did you like my use of your "intellectual" phrase? i thought i pulled it off rather nicely, as it were. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com