Subject: Swami Vivekananda's Visit to Toronto
From: Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Date: Sat Jan 29 2000 - 11:55:09 EST
Otherwise know as:Where are all the fully-drawn female characters in Salinger?
OK folks, it's been a long time since I've ventured onto the thinnish ice of
volunteering something that came from the top of my head (what a bizarre
place to which we westerners ascribe thoughts!) rather than from a book, or
from someone else. But I wanted to ask "Where have all the women gone in JDS?"
Here's how this came about. I think you know that I went to Chicago this
week. Catherine weighed in most recently with her account of what I earlier
called "The Chicago Convention", and Cecilia described earlier still as
"Hey, Holden, there's a bear in that canoe"--which DOES happen to be one of
the great lines of ALL TIME; or is that Tim?. Reading Catherine's post
reminded me (although I'm sure the thought struck me the moment we met
somewhere near my solar plexus--which seems to me a slightly more logical
place to plant the factory of our imagination) how much Catherine is
actually Franny incarnate. (Maybe THAT's why I confused the title of the
book that she clutched so carefully, along with the copy of ONION--which
confused me even further when I tried to read it later in my hotel room.
But that, perhaps, is another story.....)
As further evidence, I'd like to quote from her wonderful post about
carpenters (and even lowly painters--for Chrissake!) being almost as close
as a person can come to being an architect of the soul. I mean, a guy can't
help but fall in love with such an angel, just from reading between the
words and suddenly seeing right into her soul. (I know of only one other
architect who's ever pushed my mind in these directions, and interestingly
enough, she was a woman too. If it's not somehow redundant to say
so....Maybe you hang out with too many old boy architects, Scottie?) The
more I think about it, the more Catherine seems like Franny....
Anyway, thinking about Catherine and Franny, I got to wondering whether I
(being also a bananafish) might resemble (in Matt's magnificent mirror) some
other member of the Glass family. And to my utter horror, the first person
to come to mind (a somewhat more successful description of the mental
process, I think....) was Buddy.
Buddy's always been my least favourite member of the Glass family. (It was
so nice of you guys earlier this week to try to pre-empt my paranoia, and
make me feel better by suggesting that Buddy is the still centre around
which the entire family, indeed the entire universe revolves... which I
think is bullshit, by the way. Did I use my "which" wisely?) When I was
twelve, and first ready Franny and Zooey, I desperately wanted to be Zooey.
But I was so much older then (sorry guys, but the Bard finds his way into
many of my memory bank movies), I'm younger than that now. It's difficult
for me to imagine how I've somehow turned into someone who in some ways
might resemble Buddy.
Perhaps to avoid this painful train of thought (and painful mental
image--try to 'verhstehen' [love the verb, LOVE Dilthey!] a freight train
moving from your left ear to your right) I started wondering which of the
Glasses best reflected Cecilia....
I really know so little about Boo Boo. But the blonde bombshell who puts
all her faith in the Cubs (....and I should tell you that I also always fall
instantly in love with a person who puts all her faith in losers) could
never be compared to Boo Boo..... Who then?
Bessie? C'mon....... Phoebe? Maybe when she was younger, and playing
painful pieces about Prague in 1968 (Cecilia wasn't even BORN in 1968!
.... Sorry for that exclamation mark, Cecilia! Oops....) on her clarinet.
Cecilia as a kid maybe coulda been Ol' Phoebe. But not now. There's no one
in the canon that would work.
But this brings up another problem. When you sit down and think about it,
there aren't that many interesting women in all of JDS's work. I guess we
could put this down (appropriate direction! ....Oops, sorry again, Cecilia)
to the old white male conspiracy once again. What about Shakespeare? (with
the wonderful exceptions of Cleopatra, and Juliet, and Rosalind, and Lady
MacBeth--well, maybe there are too many exceptions in Shakespeare, including
Shakespeare himself....)
But, what about Dickens? (Wow! Even before I start to answer that
question, dozens of exceptions spring to mind....) Ibsen? Well, there's
Nora. And there's Mrs. Alving. Tennessee Williams was better at women than
he was a men. (Only a personal opinion, but I'll take on any comers who'd
like to suggest that the Gentleman Caller is the most interesting character
in The Glass Menagerie.... Streetcar?, you say. .... Say no more....)
ASIDE FROM FANNY (about whom we've been a bit disparaging, of late, if only
when discussing the story that bears her name) WHERE ARE ALL THE INTERESTING
CHARACTERS IN SALINGER?
(Bonus marks will be given to the earliest submissions. Spelling and
grammar counts for something, I'll just have to figure out what....)
Cheers,
Paul
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