re: Seymour's Suicide
Sundeep Dougal (holden@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in)
Sat, 19 Jul 1997 02:28:31 +0500 (GMT+0500)
Yeah, sure, war or more precisely the way it affects a sensitive
individual in particular is a recurring motif in many of the JDS stories
(apart from the Uncollected many, JBTWWTE in Nine Stories comes to mind,
offhand) but it would seem to me atleast that APDFBF is not even remotely
inspired by Hinduism or anything. (Life is suffering -- one has to suffer!
-- and the cycle is not completed unless one's suffered enough! Good for
the soul? Moot point. Moksha is not attained by opting out. No short cuts
in the karmic cycle --else you've gotta do it all over again.)=20
Indeed, all the biographical detail, sparse and sketchy as it is, tends to
indicate that JDS's interest in Hinduism (and a particular branch,
Advaitaism, is a much later development from the time of bananafish... If
atall any Hinduism connection exists, then it is that of Tat Tvam Asi --
That Thou Art -- not much different from -- What is, is.=20
It is much later when the more successful JDS can affordd to play around
and dabble in all manner of attributions via Buddy's nostalgic trip on
Seymour that the Hindu/Zen connections are worked in -- but a development
much later in time. Despite all the scholarly research and stuff about
reading the Nine Stories as a cycle etc., IMHO, is a mere examiner's
bias. Retrospective crowning, if you will...
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Sundeep Dougal (Sonny, to friends) Holden Caulfield, New Delhi, INDIA=20
On Fri, 18 Jul 1997, Laura Boyce wrote:
> Or how about Seymour's Liberation? (moksha)=20
> is phony. She is superficial. She is illusion. (maya) To put it
> modern, she has no clue.=20
> timing is good. He comes full circle, has completed the cycle, back to
> their honeymoon place. It started and ended there. Very symbolic.=20
> Very cyclical, like the Hindu's conception of time =AD not linear.)
>=20
> the Jews (being part Jewish). Yet his philosophy of life, his world
> view, was Eastern (Indian to be precise =AD I don't think he had gone Zen
> yet). So he was wrestling with the questions of life from his Eastern
>=20
> So that's in a nutshell my take on this. The war played a big part. It
> was in reaction to the war. And he wrestled with those questions (like
> Job did) but in his Eastern frame of mind. And to be precise, I don't
> think there is anything Zen about this. I think this is all pure Indian
> and Hindu philosophy. As "Teddy" will further explain.
>=20
>=20