> Hi I am new to Bananafish. My name is Paula, I just thought I'd introduce > myself. Can anybody tell me, about how many people are subscribed to this > mailing list? We have about 275 subscribers at present, though only a small number actually posts; most of us are readers here, not contributors. You can always review the list archives at: http://www.nyu.edu/acf/staff/oconnort/JDS/ > I look forward to hearing from you all soon! My first question.... who does > everybody think Sergeant X is????? Waker???? Or maybe not a Glass at all? I've occasionally imagined that X is really Buddy (if we want to pin the tail on a Glass) or (more tantalizing) a thinly veiled portrait of the author himself. Certainly Sgt. X drops enough clues to make himself seem to be the author in a none-too-subtle disguise. I consider it tantalizing because of the lengths to which Salinger has gone to hide behind the theatrical masks of his other characters and narrators, while X is pretty nakedly undisguised. (I've never been able to imagine X's coal-black G.I. filling and not think of it as a purely autobiographical detail. Some things are so concrete, it's hard to imagine them as anything but drawn directly from experience.) --tim o'connor