Re: de haut en bas
steven byrd (byrds@papa.uncp.edu)
Wed, 21 Jan 1998 23:03:54 -0800
Bethany M. Edstrom wrote:
>
> A fact: J.D. Salinger wouldn't last five minutes on a list like this. He would
> lose patience with all of us at all ends of the
> grammar-punctuation-intellectual-anti-intellectual spectrum. Holden would find
> most of us phony, I think, and Seymour would yell at us in elevators.
>
> The act that we are engaged in--discussing literature--is a trap for phoniness.
> We know each other in no other area of life other than the little boxes of our
> computer screen. Cyberspace may be infinite, but the reality of living with it
> is pretty limiting.
>
> Scottie makes the valid point that Salinger's characters refused to accept
> anything less than excellence. ecas amends this to "purity": I think both are
> correct. Something in this drive to live our lives for the Fat Lady, to drive
> ourselves crazy saying our own personal versions of the Jesus prayer--appeals
> to us and obsesses us.
>
> But face it--Salinger's characters are not models of social behavior. Neither,
> from what I hear, is Salinger. Those of us who are writers can try to model our
> writing after his if we want to, but I think it is ill advised to use Salinger
> (or his characters) as models for how we should treat each other.
>
> We spent last week talking about how the Glass siblings never grow up. We don't
> need to follow their example.
>
> Truce, okay?
IT'S A BEAUTIFUL WORLD SOMETIMES.....A DAMN BEAUTIFUL WORLD