Re: the uninitiated reader
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@virtual.park.uga.edu)
Thu, 29 Jan 1998 22:53:15 -0500 (EST)
emily writes:
Funny, it was APDFB that first enamoured me to Salinger... after reading
Catcher in school and enjoying it, but not too enthusiastically, I got 9
Stories for 10c (used). It was only after reading "Bananafish" that I
became the Salinger fan I am now. On the other hand, I idolized Seymour
even before reading F&Z or RHTRBC&SAI quite as much as his siblings did,
merely on the basis of that story. Does that make me a little odd?
Yes, hopelessly odd. Turn yourself in.
In all seriousness, though, I *do* think it's wrong to read See-more
proleptically. What we find out about him later affects our answer to the
question, "why did he kill himself." Indeed, what Salinger himself later
finds out about Seymour affects *his* answer to the same question. Else,
he wouldn't be issuing disguised apologies via Buddy, and he wouldn't have
re-written "Bananafish" and death in the form of "Teddy" (published, I
note again with satisfaction, precisely 5 years to the day after "Bfish").
misprision
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mkozusko@virtual.park.uga.edu