Re: Quiet list? there's always

StupiesCuz@aol.com
Wed, 01 Jul 1998 21:29:46 -0400 (EDT) 

Ah, Camille, Camille, I didn't say that Holden is Salinger's opinion. I
dobelieve you have missed my point. :) Look at it this way, you will not write
a happy story if you are seriously depressed. You will not cry at a happy
story (considering you are an average person :) What I meant about Salinger is
that he must have put some (or a lot) of his own feelings into Holden (and
definitely Seymour). He must have given Holden some of his own characteristics
and traits. It's like Wuthering Heights, if I remember correctly, which was
written by Bronte who is, indeed, female, but from a male point of view. It
was very hard for me to read the novel and not think about that fact that it
was written by a female. Well, not too hard, but I couldn't get it out of my
mind. Do you see, now, what I had meant before?

-Olga-

In a message dated 98-07-01 21:01:12 EDT, you write:

<< > << Stick to the text.  Forget about the
 >  author.   >>
 > 
 > Lets just all stick to our opinions. How about that? You cannot forget
 about
 > the author while reading his text. It's like watching comedy with Al
 Pacino.
 
 Whaa ???
 
 Seriously - I think what Jim's saying is we should not look to JDS for the
 Truth. Our interpretation is every bit as valid as his - that's what
 happens once you put a text out into the world. Just because he wrote it
 doesn't mean that his opinion on it is Correct. There *is* no right or
 wrong answer; we're never going to arrive at an ultimate interpretation or
 a Right Answer - which is the beauty of it. You can talk of validity - i.e.
 it is *valid* to say that Franny could be pregnant - but not correctness -
 i.e. Franny is pregnant. Also, we can only ever speculate on how much of
 anything is autobiographical - which is ultimately irrelevent anyway; like
 asking `what did da Vinci have for lunch the day he painted the Mona Lisa',
 because our interpretation is what completes the circle of communication -
 we are in effect writing the other half of the text. Sure, it's interesting
 to know biographical things and what inspires artists but it should
 probably be kept in a seperate basket to literary interpretation and only
 touched upon rarely. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as it hits the paper,
 it's fiction. 
 
 Camille 
 verona_beach@geocities.com
 @ THE ARTS HOLE
 www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
 
  >>