Re: Quiet list? there's always
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sat, 04 Jul 1998 20:40:53 +1000
> I guess I'm on both sides of the issue. Sometimes it seems as though the
> author has created such a strong sense of voice in his characters it's
> impossible to avoid feeling as though he is talking directly to his
> readers and we can know him because of how deeply he works in our hearts
> and minds. It's almost as if the actual Jerome David Salinger has become
> his own "meta-character" like some unwilling understudy shrinking off
> stage--and some of us, (in those extreme angle seats?) can't help looking
> off the stage/page to see what else we can, while others love the play
too
> much not to want to focus ("Glasses") mostly on the page...
I'm starting to feel that way too - things like `To Esme' and `The Laughing
Man' and even `De Daumier Smith ...' (but the first two especially) seem to
almost challenge you to see them as fiction. But I wondered - in the guise
of Buddy Glass, is Salinger deliberately playing around with our tendency
towards this perception? Surely around the time of Catcher's publication
there was much discussion of whether Salinger *was* Holden (not to mention
the famous Time Magazine search for `Mr Salinger's Cupboard of Little
Girls' or whatever the hell it was - the quest to find the `real' Sybil)
and in the character of Buddy he seems to demonstrate a wide awareness of
his (Salinger's) public perception. Or is he possibly using this perception
to show us what a craftsman he is; that his voice is so natural that he can
make us believe that we're being told the truth?
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442