The Great Salinger May Not Be Universal
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Tue, 14 Jul 1998 11:22:48 -0400 (EDT)
On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Camille Scaysbrook wrote:
> So which side of the argument are you on? I can't quite figure out whether
> you are saying you agree that Salinger's work will last because of its
> universality, or it won't.
I am decidedly on the "Salinger's work won't last" side of things. It's
not universal, except to people who think their personal experiences are
universal. I thought I'd rather plainly said so two or three times
recently.
> I consider something `universal' to mean that it
> transcends its time and place of composing
To call anything "universal" is dangerous. There are components of
Salinger's work that are wide-reaching (they transcend the time and place
of composing), but for the most part, Salinger is not as universal as we
might hope. Lesley's post of today is well taken.
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Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu