Re: poetic allusion in salinger

Sundeep Dougal (holden@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in)
Wed, 09 Jul 1997 01:08:43 +0500 (GMT+0500) 

O!, Will, this is more like irc---trading notes back and forth!  Okay, you
asked for it! For a long time I have thought that JDS is not your regular
spontaneous (leave alone stream-of-consciouness)  artist-writer. He is
more of a craftsman, who labours lovingly over his work and presents you
with the finished product that's exquisitely crafted with care, devoid of
all blemish...Since his New Yorker days, and in particular---prolly
because he could afford to be--- atleast, he's been a consummate
perfectionist...but take the artists he quotes or professes to like---This
Salzberg book also lists that full litany from his interview to William
Maxwell (also on my page for a ready reference)...Out of those for the
time being let's just take Kierkegaard that I mentioned just now...For
some reason I wasn't really surprised that he too lived reclusively and
guarded his privacy fiercely. JDS I think definitely, consciously modelled
him self on his heroes and has strived to practice the philosophies he's
been influenced by...By the time of S:AI and Hapworth he's spouting a
whole lotta Vedanta and allusions to Vivekananda (more on all that
later---my thoughts on all this _are_ *very, very* inchoate yet...) but
the point is that he's very deliberately, in each of his successive
book/story since CITR when he really came into limelight, crafted his
fiction to, as if, answer his critics, real _and_ perceived. To that an
extent, reading JDS, from a sceptical/cynical point of view is to allow
oneself to be sucked into the vortex of masterly manipulation (never mind
the metaphors, mixed or otherwise for now)...It's like the perfect
literary seduction...(JDS apparently has always excelled at that---the
Oona O'Neil correspondence; multiple copies of the same literary epistle 
to more than one person...)...His creation of a literary, alternate world
for the uninformed is awesomely successful and because he's aware that
he's doing it, he resents the critics pinning him down on detail...And his
playfulness in dropping red-herrings and so on is just a bit too
childlike---I mean charming and appealing. I am not being denigratory
here, or saying it pejoratively. it makes sense to assume that he'd be
happier dealing with those who just read and run because they wouldn't for
example waste their time carping over why indeed he refers to Sapho the
way he does...It's a serious chip on his shoulder, being a drop out, to
show that he's not uninformed. So much so that he is one of those very few
successful fiction writers from the West who have struggled with the
Eastern thought not just in a dilittante manner but seriously, sincerely,
conscientiously...Am I making sense at all? I am afraid not even to myself
as to all these things that "I too much discuss, too much
debate"...there's some bit from Eliot that comes to mind about
contradictions and stuff, but I'd let that pass for now...



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Sundeep Dougal (Sonny, to friends) Holden Caulfield, New Delhi, INDIA 
http://www.thepentagon.com/holden

On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, WILL HOCHMAN wrote:

> sonny, you're cooking--don't organize, flow!  I too have wondered how much
> Salinger derrives from literature.  I wonder if he wants to answer or echo
> eliot and rilke, how deeply they are in him and how much he puts these
> poets (and others?) into his work.  I will go to my salzburg and read the
> essay you note and probably have more to say, but for now, I'm just
> thinking out loud and wondering if jds's concept of being an amateur
> reader is possible since he's so clearly professional at including
> literature in his work!  will
> 
>