Re: Godot: An Introduction
Brendan McKennedy (suburbantourist@hotmail.com)
Sun, 22 Feb 1998 21:32:55 -0800 (PST)
>I believe that Salinger is the same. People are too often reading too
>heavily into literature, that is to say, they are attributing symbolism
>to an object or occurence that was not intended to be symbolic. I think
>that some writers of our century have been aware of this, and have
>managed to produce stories that are merely a pool of archetypcal
figures
>and symbols that are like boxes. The reader comes along to these boxes
>and puts inside them all their influences and beliefs etc. and opens
the
>box to find something that is significant to them. Salinger does not do
>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 hate to sound like a smartass (not really, though), but you are
putting your own reading experience into Salinger's box. I'm not sure
about any phallic symbolism (I once read that the fur muffs worn by the
protagonist's sister in "The Metamorphosis" were a symbol of female
genitalia, and I was less annoyed than confused at how that could
possibly help a reader appreciate the story...)--BUT I'm even less sure
about Salinger's ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity. Anyway, once
Salinger published the stories he gave up all rights to tell anyone
whether or not he/she should interpret it in any given fashion. Every
reader brings her/his experience to the reading, and some readers go to
lists such as this to expand that experience. You can tell us that
we're faulted for dumping that in the box, but that, as I said, is your
way of dumping *your* experience in the box.
I hope I'm not coming off as an asshole to you...I thought your post was
exceedingly brilliant; it just happens that my first impulse to reply
was over a matter of disagreement.
Brendan
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