Subject: Re: Hapless or Worthless?
From: Jason McHenry (jason@smartwentcrazy.com)
Date: Sat Jul 27 2002 - 23:25:33 EDT
I'm trying to understand the basis for the seemingly general concession that
Hapworth is a genuine stinker. After finally collecting and assembling and
reading the lot of 22 uncollected stories, many years ago, I always felt
like Hapworth was the one I liked best. I plainly loved it, really. I
suppose for reasons that I cannot fully explain. [Most assuredly not in such
eloquent and gentle terms as the ones that usually populate this list.]
Still, I love Hapworth like I love my favorite song and any attempts I made
to defend it, or express my pure appreciation of it, would sound flat and
trite and ignorant.
Matt wrote:
> "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 unbelievably, its desultory
> thematics and wandering narrative, its pretentiousness), the story is a
> disappointment for the great majority of Salinger fans. It's bad.
The wandering narrative, to be sure, is one of my favorite things about the
story and I read it like Ulysses and cheered in my head all the while. The
pretentiousness of the story was just perfect for me and was a lesson from
Salinger in sly sarcasm. [I'm sure he was far from cranky when he wrote it
but more trembling with excitement and smiling like mad the whole time and
was really just sending us a subtle and beautiful wink and a thanks for
loving Seymour as much as he does.] I know that even now I try to slip in a
new "Word of the Day" in conversation and am sometimes fishing for
opportunities to use the new tools in my box of vocabulary. And there is no
doubt I did the same thing when I was nine. Such foolish attempts at
sounding "smart" are endearing to me and I'm tickled to envision Seymour
circling new words, writing them and their definitions down in his best
penmanship, and looking for every opportunity to toss them out in some
context. Just acting confident is hard enough when you're not but if you
keep showing that same face long enough you, and others you meet, will
eventually accept it and recognize it as the real thing. Sometimes
intellectual endeavors are like that. [For me at least.] So I'd never poke
holes in someone's spirit when I see them at that stage. Least of all my old
friend Seymour Glass.
Again, I can only lumber about in this arena. I am a hillbilly at heart and
lowest of the low-brows. Maybe all of this rambling is rubbish. Regardless,
I know what I know and Hapworth is important and impressive and made me like
old Seymour even more. And how can that be bad?
Can I hear some more from you on why Hapworth is bad? Or better still if
there are any fans?
Thanks for your time in this.
Solid handshakes,
Jason McHenry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Kozusko" <mkozuskol@parallel.park.uga.edu>
To: <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 2:55 AM
Subject: Hapless or Worthless?
>
> 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
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