Re: The Great Salinger May Not Be Universal
Arne Moll (arnemail@dds.nl)
Tue, 14 Jul 1998 22:15:58 +0200
I decided to stay until this discussion is over, so please feel free to
react to my previous email. :)
arne
At 22:04 14-7-98 +0200, you wrote:
>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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