Re: Your starter for...
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 20:23:43 -0500
Her book and another slim, Indian-published volume by Som P.
Ranchan are the only full-length academic studies of (eastern)
religion in Salinger.
I picked up a little pamphlet, apparantly commissioned and
published by Christians, a few years ago at a world's fair
exhibit. It's an essay by Kenneth Hamilton that examines the
idea of religion in Salinger. The cover features unforgivable
pen-and-ink drawings of such things as the fat lady in a blue
dress, Phoebe wearing a baseball cap (backwards), the NYC
skyline, an episode of "It's a Wise Child" in progress, with
Seymour apparantly pleading with the microphone as a
love-stricken 8 year old girl and two radio programmers look
on, a full view of Zooey's open medicine cabinet, Seymour with
tight, curly hair kissing a very plump Sybil's foot on a raft,
Holden talking to nuns, Holden sitting listlessly on a
suitcase and wearing lounge slippers, a face seemingly drawn
by the Picasso of De D. Smith, and one green dress on a
hanger, all gathered around an unflattering representation of
JD himself, with the Chief's blue-black hair and a stupid,
Kenneth Branagh half grin dabbed onto a long but chubby and
ruddy face. The bottom lip is swollen and the eyes--very Al
Pacino-ish--seem to sink into the face as great scoops of
vanilla ice cream might sink into a bog.
The cover cannot take away from the serious scholarship it
encloses, though. The tone is pedantic, almost petulant, and
the agenda is vast. Most of the published ficiton is treated,
if only briefly. A nice overview for the uninitiate.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu