Subject: Imagine No Catcher
From: citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Date: Thu Jan 27 2000 - 14:44:46 EST
Yesterday, someone wrote:
>PS: Imagine his life and career withOUT writing (or publishing) The
>Catcher.
After leaving the slicks, the soon-to-be sensation of _The New Yorker_ opens
with the bang of APDFB; dazzles a magazine audience with each successive
story; a speculative publisher takes a chance on a first-book of short
stories; modest sales, though respectful reviews, but with reviewers
wondering when he's going to write a _real_ book, i.e., a novel; he replies
repeating a short statement along the lines of being a dash man, not a
miler; _Franny_ published and pregnancy question is the first "controversy"
of his career (though school boards never hear of the story); _RHTRBC_
(after a literary satori in spring of '55--documented by a yellowing letter
on this desk) formally ushers in quite a crew that goes by the appellation
of The Glass Family; two more increasingly eccentric stories about eccentric
family; _Franny and Zooey_ published without fanfare (no _Time_ and _Life_
D-day assault of Cornish and author's previous life: hunt for the closet of
girls) nor ensuing best-seller status; publishes one more book to poorer
reviews; then a head-shaking story (even for _New Yorker_ readers)
called, --what?--_Hapworth 16, 1924_; once sensational '50s _New Yorker_
author goes silent; Cornish never heard of (nor destination unless one is a
fanatic fan of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens); his work remembered
only by a thinning crowd of older _New Yorker_ readers and earnest literary
specialists of early post-WW II American Literature;his name never popping
up in the press; the _three_ modest-selling books now long out-of-print.
Imagine no _Catcher_.
--Bruce
PS: Yes, John Lennon possibly still alive.
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Feb 28 2000 - 08:38:02 EST