Re: Godot: An Introduction
Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Sun, 22 Feb 1998 09:11:10 -0500
> I would like to take this opportunity to welcome myself into your
> presence as much as any estranged guest can welcome himself into the
> mental home of another.
Welcome to the list, Godot. I've been waiting for your post. But endlessly.
I'm feeling a little bit blindsided by your wonderful message and do not
think I can (or want to) add to the LitCritBit. However, I'd have to argue
that if you are "pathetic, isolated and self-pitying," you have a long way
to go before you'll convince me, because I found myself strongly reacting
to your message, right from my abdomen all the way up to what is left of my
frontal lobe.
> One of the strange things about Salinger's work is that throughout there
> are scattered little Zen koans of his own creation. You don't understand
> them because there is no answer, but you *know* that it is a beautiful,
> astounding perfect thing.
Yes! It's funny that you say this; I have been dipping into one of the
classic Zen texts, from back in the beatnik days before I was born, and I
keep meaning to send along a quote that was a cold slap in the face, in the
context of the discussions we have here. (Naturally, I'm at home and the
book is at work, so yet again, I can't send the quote.)
> 'Erich Heller said of Kafka 'Kafka is the lest problematic of our modern
> writers'. In a sense, there is no 'problem' of 'what Kafka meant': he
> meant what he wrote.'
Sure -- I've got a big problem with Kafka texts, because they seem, to me,
so perfect in their English translation (by the Muirs; though last night I
saw a new edition -- new translation -- of The Castle), I can't imagine
what it must be like to read him in German. (A language I tried to learn,
but failed to learn well, in order to read Kafka in German.) Kafka, for me,
simply *is*. I can't imagine him being any different in the way I read him.
> this. I read somewhere some rubbish about the Happy Man being a phallic
> symbol or something. What a load of crap. Salinger means exactly what he
> says.
I'm not sure that I have seen this reference, but at his best, Salinger
leaves me scratching my head, and (in my opinion; yours may well vary
significantly) wondering at the marvelous ambiguities he leaves, like
bon-bons, around his good stories. This is where I think people tend to
fall into the trap of saying, "Here is my interpretation of why character Z
does this to character A." My reading of him -- and I hurry to mention
that I am no expert or critic or psychoanalyst -- is a kind of Zen reading.
I just ... read it. I marvel at the technical and aesthetic details.
(I saw a display more than a year ago of a massive collection of Faberge
eggs that had been presented to various members of the Czar's circle, and
in their obsessively microscopic and clearly intentional detail, and their
ability to be transformed from, say, a large ornate egg and become, say, a
functional clock, they reminded me of nobody but Salinger.)
Countless times I've set out to figure out "How does he *do* that!?!?" and
instead get sucked into the story again, and never come up with a
satisfactory answer.
> As a whole, I think that all Salinger's work points to God.
I would imagine that if he ever talked about his body of work, he would
have to agree with this remark. I can't speak for the man, but it's a
distinct impression I have.
I'd be REALLY interested in hearing what some other readers feel about your
"Generation Zero" comments. I'm in no position to talk about it from
experience, but in my many contact with students, I find a couple of
(broadly defined) camps. Some take the nihilist approach (my life sucks, I
have no future, I have no past, I have nothing to offer the world, and I
might as well be dead). Some display a kind of 1940s optimism; they
genuinely work their asses off to prosper in school, some because they want
a good education, some because their families demand it, some because it's
in their nature to approach life in an effort to wrestle it into
submission. Lots of students are still in that formative stage where they
are sitting down at a fork in the proverbial road, and are trying to make
sense of such a strange topology where they feel a need to choose between
vastly different directions. (It's only later that they realize the
decision, while significant, is not irrevocable.) These were the concerns
many of my peers had when we were in school. I'm older than you (ancient:
37), but I know those sensations. And so did many of my friends; some,
even now, are not decided about what road to choose.
> The Generation Zero dude
> will stay around for only as long as he can tolerate existence.
Here is one place where I veer from agreement. This person is around in
every generation, sometimes under one disguise or another. But this
existential person is always around us. (For people who know or like or
care about James Dean, how many of you have wondered if you would continue
to live beyond his age -- killed at age 24 -- and how you will die? This
is a question I've found myself frequently asking people who feel
themselves in existential crisis.)
> For a few more blissful days I will linger longer in that gorgeous realm
> of beauty for which so many of you would give your reproductive organs
> if it meant that you could experience it once again. That is to say, I'm
> reading 'Seymour an Introduction' for the *first time*. I finished Raise
> High the Roofbeams the other day and it just blew me away, though I must
> admit, I find Buddy's language style harder to get through than
> Seymour's.
Yes ... one could say that Salinger's professional career (what we know of
it) was like the opposite of dismantling an onion. As he marched along, he
added layer upon layer of obscurity on himself. I myself happen to love
"Seymour: An Introduction" (and would love to have an electronic copy of it
and other Salinger texts, because I would love to turn it into HTML and
then annotate it, and then annotate my own comments, in a kind of secular
Talmud. I think it would be absolutely fascinating to demonstrate visually
the kind of connections between phrases and situations and
characterizations.
> Could somebody please elaborate on this 'amateur reader' concept?
I have always regarded Salinger's remark on the "amateur readers out there"
to be his rebuff of sorts to the intense scrutiny he was subjected to by
the critical and intellectual community of the 1950s. Which is not so
different from what you said in your message: it's an attitude that
approximately means "just read it. Do not feel compelled to dissect it and
tell the writer about what he has written." This is roughly how I
interpret the phrase.
> I apologise if this message appears in any way arrogant or presumptuous
> and to compensate for this potential fault on my part, I hereby declare
> myself to be a humble, highly submissive, blathering little dog,
> salivating unintentionally, at the proverbial feet of all who read this.
Ah, so you have a sense of humor, too. 8-) Seriously, I hope this last
bit was written tongue-in-cheek. Your message was a delight and made a lot
of sense to me. So, get out of the lapdog outfit and put on the Rottweiler
suit that would better match your needs, I say.
> I'd just like to be Muriel's father's uncle and all.
<*grin*> Many of us harbor a soft spot for him.
Thanks for invigorating my day and, I hope, the lives of many other readers
of the list!
--tim