Re: Inverted Forests

WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Fri, 25 Jul 1997 09:38:02 -0600 (MDT) 

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Mattis Fishman wrote:

> 
> For me, it was was impossible to ignore the comparison between Ford and
> Seymour as "major" American poets. By the time Seymour was fully developed
> as a character, one gets the sense that the title poet is the highest
> compliment Buddy could pay to anyone, almost the Western niche which would
> correspond to the more Eastern "occupation" of holy man. Yet to my reading,
> Ray Ford is far, far from this ideal.

Certainly Ray Ford is not cast in a holy light, except if you are a poet
and recognize great poets as holy (or as ginsberg says at the end of his
poem, "Footnote To Howl," "Holy the supernatural extra brilliant
intelligent kindness of the soul!").  We know little of the actual poems
of both Ford and Seymour but in Inverted Forest (IF), we can at least
sense Salinger is responding on some deep levels to T.S. Eliot...and as a
poet myself, I can tell you that my friendship with a great poet like
Richard Hugo showed me how to see him as holy and see beyond his
alcoholism and very twisted psyche into the holiness of his words...
 
> > The questions that I have are: is Ray Ford a proto-Seymour destroying
> himself as a consequence of the depth of his feelings as evidenced by the
> poetic gift he possesses? is he a phony, and only a great poet in the
> academic sense? are his character failings unrelated to being a poet, rather
> to his miserable childhood? did Salinger only later develop his concept
> of the poet as bhodisatva? can one be a true poet and see nothing but
> dispair?

I'm reminded of a poem by Wallace Stevens, called "Esthetique du Mal" but
it's more the phrase that has stayed with me...admittedly I'm fond of
french, but even fonder of the idea that poetry doesn't come as powerfully
from the nice and good aspects of life as it does from despair and
darkness.  Both Ray Ford and Seymour destroy themselves, and the mystery
is in understanding how their destruction feeds the holiness of their
poetry...it's too simple to say drinking or suicide, and deserting one's
wife is wrong...I think the challenge is in understanding why it was
right for both Ford and Seymour to do what they did...

> 
> My own feeling is that the story is not focused on the nature of t
he life,
> strugle and death of a poet (as the Seymour opus might be viewed) but rather
> as "misery seeking its own level" - the little boy Ray who is cast out
> with his destitute mother, grows up unable to love and gravitates 
> eventually to an unnatural, adulterous, alchoholic, self-destructive
> relationship (which is in contrast to Corinne who is coming from a different
> direction). Along the way, he develops his poetic voice and finds that
> his audience is more than empathetic to a description of life which
> is comparable to a wasteland, an inverted forest. 

I guess I'm too fond of Ray Ford to put him on a low level of simply
seeking misery--I think he's sees he can't be the poet in himself with
corinne and makes a much harder decision to leave his cushy park ave life
than it seems.  Unlike Eliot whose wasteland is his culture and time,
Ford's wasteland is inverted, and almost entirely inside himself...
> 
> If I could ask a single question it would be: does the Salinger who molded
> Seymour feel that being a great poet implies having a Seymour-like
> spiritual outlook (and if so, then Ray Ford was either created before JDS
> took this position, or else was intended to be a phony), or is being a poet
> simply developing the eyes and voice, with the spiritual outcome highly
> dependent upon one's predisposition (i.e: Ray the unloved, becomes
> Ray the loveless), or (and this is just the first option reworded) is a
> poet only a poet if he can get past his own personality?
> 
Why can't it be both?

> (By the way, Will, I cannot see Ray Ford as Seymour without a family, rather
> as someone who couldn't recognize a rather large watch he received in the
> mail)
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, but I do think ford and
seymour are characters that may have been linked for salinger...there's a
lot of evidence in his early stories of characters, who in retrospect, are
early versions of later characters...since (I'm not certain here, so
correct me if I'm wrong) ford and seymour are salinger's only two poets, I
do think they are connected and guess that it's Seymour's family that
keeps him in away from the squalor that ford can't resist...

> 
> I agree with Rod that Bunny was almost bizarre, she is so far from
> anyone or anything I know that I can't relate to her at all - does anyone
> have any experiences with this type of person?
> 
Yes, sad to say, as a college prof I occasionally meet students who think
marrying a prof is the answer to all of their problems, and some of the
students' problems might almost make Bunny seem normal...


> All the best,
> Mattis
> 

Thanks for the dance, Mattis!  will