Hapless or Worthless?


Subject: Hapless or Worthless?
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 19 2002 - 11:55:43 EDT


 
Why the need to defend "Hapworth," or to work out some special scenario
in which its bad-ness can be excused, explained, or otherwise
reconcilled to literary giant-ness of the Glass-Caulfield canon? I hope
not in order to preserve the integrity of our Illustrious Life
Tour-Guide and Mentor by insisting that he couldn't have written
something bad.

All writers write bad things at some point. Salinger wrote especially
bad fiction in the early days: witness the unpublished material (it may
not have been the doctor's visit, Josh, or the .pdf files that turned
your eyes worse, but the bad-ness of the stories themselves).

Of course, "Hapworth" isn't bad in the same way that early Salinger
ficiton might be said to be bad. "Hapworth" seems to be intentionally
bad--the defiant work of an aging, cranky, slightly eccentric and
modestly accomplished prose writer who felt trapped and perhaps
persecuted by an audience he no longer wanted. Whatever the nature of
its offending ingredients, however (its unbelievability, its desultory
thematics and wandering narrative, its pretentiousness), the story is a
disappointment for the great majority of Salinger fans. It's bad.

But so what? Go back and re-read "Franny" or "Esme" or "Laughing Man";
dig out the old Holden-and-Maurice action figures and re-live the
elevator episode; recite passages from "S:AI" to uninitiated friends and
family members; speculate about the tremendous, redeeming genius of the
vault manuscripts and the heroism of the Max Brod who will eventually
deliver them to our sacred guardianship. But leave "Hapworth" where it
has fallen. The municipal waste services will eventually come along and
haul it off.

-Matt
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Tue Sep 17 2002 - 16:27:01 EDT