Re: The Great Salinger May Not Be Universal
Arne Moll (arnemail@dds.nl)
Tue, 14 Jul 1998 22:04:22 +0200
In fact before unsubscribing, let me give my last and only contribution to
this list, about the so-called "universality" of Literature in general.
At 11:22 14-7-98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>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.
Could you please point out what things ARE universal then, except, of
course, the universe itself? If personal experiences that we all have,
always (like love, death, loss, friendship, etc. etc. etc - all those
things that Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and, indeed
Salinger, wrote about..) aren't, then nothing is. Since identification is,
in my opinion, the only real argument for reading literature (if I want to
know something about America and its youth in the 50s, I'd rather check a
history book), I think the only qualification for being 'Universal'
actually is, identification with exactly these personal experiences, that
are of all time.
>
>
>> 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.
Everything can transcent the time and place of composing, if only it is
written well. Since I think we would all agree that Salinger is a good
writer, I don't see why his work should not transcent time & place of
writing. Why is Shakespeare so famous? Not because of what he wrote, about
some historical kings and kingdoms, but how he wrote it , and how he
described human feelings and actions. Really, if Salinger could have put
the meaning or essence of what he writes down in one or two scentences, he
would have done so. Since he hasn't done this, in the discussion we
shouldn't look for the time&place but for the way he described this
time&place.
Arne
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>--------------------------------------------
>Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu
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