Re: a few more points

AntiUtopia (AntiUtopia@aol.com)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:29:50 -0500 (EST)

In a message dated 1/19/98 4:41:53 AM EST, bowman@mail.indigo.ie writes:

<< 
 	Responding endlessly in a picky sort of way to other 
 	people's responses can become very tiresome but every 
 	so often my obsessionality gains the upper hand.  
 	Indulge me ?	
 	____________>>

Scottie, let's form a club :)
 
 	<<Jim:
 
 	When I referred to "New Yorker" dandyism, I had in mind the 
 	prose style of the magazine as exemplified in the essays of its 
 	editorial page & which I always associate (perhaps wrongly) 
 	with E.B. White.  It was the tone of the narrator - Buddy - rather 
 	than the extravagances of the actor Zooey that I found a bit 
 	ornate.>>

Yeah, I think I was aware of where you were coming from.  I associate this
with Cheever for some reason :)  	

We're getting into some interesting territory here.  I didn't get the
impression from your post that you were criticizing Buddy, but Salinger
himself.  Is his speaking, ostensibly, thru Buddy a means of commenting on
Buddy's character?  Is this part of Salinger's art?  Part of the point of the
narrative?  Is Salinger's writing different when he's not writing as if he
were Buddy Glass?
 
 <<	When I wrote of the conversation between Bessie & Zooey being 
 	`expository' I meant there was a lot of `telling' going on as - 
 	for just one example - when the son explains to his mother what 
 	is behind her daughter's problem with the Jesus prayer.  In the kind 
 	of book Salinger wrote, dialogue constitutes most of the action.  
 	It's what the character `do' to each other, it illustrates their 
 	relationship with each other.  Here, it strikes me as a cumbersome 
 	way of filling in the context of the story.   I suspect he realises 
 	he's in danger of losing the audience when he makes even Zooey 
 	ask if Bessie is still paying attention.  And when, later, Bessie 
 	asks: `Is that what Franny's supposed to be doing ?  I mean is that 
 	what she's doing & all ?' - it sounds like an unconvincing attempt 
 	to reassure us that it's all very interesting.>>

Eh, I see your point, but given the circumstances, are expository dialogues
all that unnatural?  Say, if there's a serious problem--or the threat of
one--with one member of the family?  
 
 <<	My mother died quite a number of years ago but our relationship 
 	had, indeed, something of the affectionate combativeness that's 
 	presented in the Glass family.  But there was never anything 
 	`expository' in our conversations.  In the intimate, lifelong 
 	struggle for power that characterises most mother & son 
 	relationships there's little place or need for `explanations'.>>

Can you honestly say you've never had a single conversation such as Zooey's
with your mother in your entire life?  And if not, is it not possible that
others have?  
 
 <<	We British are certainly arrogant.  To typifiy us as `pretentious 
 	jackasses' is an expensive mistake made in both the distant & 
 	recent past by many simple minded folk.>>

What, like the Irish?  :)  Seriously, I wasn't calling ALL the British
pretentious jackasses.  You'll notice my post was in the singular.  I was only
referring to You. :)  But, since the British--or middle class British males,
that is--can be "certainly arrogant," my comment was intended to imply that
perhaps a British male would be more inclined to this fault than others.

Now, if you Really wanted to reply to me on this one--say, if our roles were
reversed, I'd be thinking along the lines of the pot and the kettle, and
taking one to know one, to use trite Americanisms, begging your pardon sire :)
 
 <<	The Glass's `large apartment' is situated not as you suggest, 
 	in the Upper West side of New York but in `...an old but, 
 	categorically, not unfashionable apartment house in the East 
 	Seventies, where possibly two thirds of the more mature women 
 	owned fur coats....'>>

I was aware that the Glass's apartment was in a more fashionable part of New
York.  But I think I meant to say that it was, well, "barely fashionable," not
highly fashionable--older fashionable--and the Glass family "barely" fit in
there.  The whole story seemed to point to the idea that they were really just
a bit in over their heads, or that they had settled long ago, otherwise they
wouldn't belong--it wouldn't be a neighborhood they could move into that day
if looking for housing.  I didn't get the impression that the Glasses were
particularly rich or well off, but I could be mistaken. 
 
 <<	This is not what most of us first think of as the equivalent of the 
 	modest carpenter's house in Galilee.  Poverty is not the sine qua 
 	non of the religious experience but there seems to be a consensus 
 	among the great teachers that it helps.>>

eh, I understand this, but I don't think poverty is seen as helping, just that
riches are seen as dangerous.  We could throw quotes back and forth, of
course, but if you place Jesus' teachings on the subject within the context of
the Hebrew Scriptures--particularly the Law and the book of Proverbs--and the
applications of those teachings by Paul--you get a slightly different
impression.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, for example--the teachings of
Moses--material wealth is a sign of God's favor and blessing.  Yet there is a
constant undercurrent of the awareness that too much wealth hardens the
individual against God.  The balance in the teachings of Moses is a prayer for
'daily bread,'  a desire to have our physical needs more than met, but not a
desire to be filthy rich.  This was exemplified by the children of Israel
wandering in the desert, gathering each day what they needed for the day.
Extremes of both wealth and poverty are to be avoided, and Jesus, following
this tradition, taught us to pray for our "daily bread."

The point of my comments was that spiritual enlightenment is not limited or
bound by class--that is the point of the emphasis on poverty in the teachings
of Christ.  His listeners would have tended to think the materially wealthy
were especially blessed, following Moses, while Christ chose to emphasize
character traits such as humility and dependence on God--something the
materially impoverished are more apt to display...as per the book of James.
In this discussion I felt we were making the opposite mistake, taking poverty
to be a sign of holiness, or a prerequisite of sorts.  I don't think that is
the case...
 
 <<	And yes, as a somewhat overweight old man, I've not the slightest 
 	intention of indulging sentimental fantasies about fat women, young 
 	or old.  I do something much more useful.  I treat them every day of 
 	the week.
 	_______________
  >>

HA!  I'd like to hear from some of THEM :)

Jim