James Dean Salinger & other miscellany
Emily Moore (evmoore@hotmail.com)
Wed, 02 Jul 1997 21:20:37 -0700 (PDT)
So much struck me in the last entire digest, and so much of it seemed so
closely related...
Don't feel bad about reaching JDS at this time in your life...high
school gave me a certain perspective on CITR that I think I'll be likely
to retain, whereas you'll have a more mature view. Holden is my idol.
You have a chance to see him more objectively, something I sometimes
wish I could do. Please don't regret that--you don't have to be a
teenager to appreciate a novel about a teenager. Think of the article
by Tom Robbins, about reaching back to another period... Maybe we get
JDS when we need him. Like in the goodbye note--it's possible it's a
good thing you didn't focus on understanding humankind in high school
(like Seymour) because later you would have so little. If Seymour had
had Holden at his approach of young adulthood would it have helped him?
Does any of this make sense to anyone or am I just imagining
connections?
Anyways, here's the miscellany.
1. Tom Robbins is very neat but does anyone else find that his tone of
constant snide amusement at everything gets in the way of deep
understanding?
2. Nanda--if you like _On the Road_ try a collection of consecutive
short stories (Kerouac too)-_Lonesome Traveler._ One of my favorites and
I love K. with a passion. Also you could try to find some Lawrence
Ferlinghetti if you're into poetry--he's much more accessible than
Ginsberg and Kerouac, who actually does really nice poetry too. It
absolutely kills me that Burroughs is the one who was on the most drugs,
and is just about the longest-surviving one too...morphine as health
food, anyone?
3. Did the cousin who thought Seymour's comment about "mixing memory and
desire" proved he was a pedophile ever consider that it may not be
possible to take everything he says literally? It always sounded like
he was talking more to himself, just saying something crazy and a little
sarcastic...
4. I wads lucky to encounter some of my favorite authors in school in
"forced reading"-JDS, Faulkner, Joyce, Harper Lee, Hector Hugh Munro
(master of the short story if ever there was one), Beckett, it goes on
and on. And it's not as if my English teachers haven't been evil old
harpies either...
5. If most any of the current bunch of young American actors were cast
as Holden I would vomit. I don't know if they could do him justice but
I rather like Johnny Depp and Ewan Mcgregor (despite him being Mr.
Flavor of the Month.)
keep passing the open windows,
Emily
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