Re: I am Franny!!! / We love Bill

patrick flaherty (pfkw@email.msn.com)
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 14:54:19 -0400 

-----Original Message-----
From: Camille Scaysbrook <verona_beach@geocities.com>
To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu <bananafish@lists.nyu.edu>
Date: Sunday, July 19, 1998 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: I am Franny!!! / We love Bill


>
>> No comment on the Johnny Depp praise.  An Oscar nomination?  Anyway, I am
>> shocked to hear that a writer such as yourself, who feels that the best
>are
>> those who "make up their own rules,"
>
>Not necessarily - I think it's important to be an expert on the rules
>before you start breaking them, just like Picasso was a consummate realist
>artist before he moved on to cubism, and Larry from the Three Stooges was a
>classically trained violin player.
>
>No, I've tried to read a lot of those guys - Bukowski, Burroughs ... they
>just don't do a lot for me. It's like `Natural Born Killers' - it probably
>looked wonderful and made a lot of sense to someone on an acid bender, but
>to an ol' soberside like me - blah. Nothing is more boring than watching
>someone who is stoned out of their brains to someone who isn't - they're
>dull, they ramble, they go off on boring, pointless tangents. One of the
>reasons I like Salinger is because he's a great craftsman - he's written
>some of the best constructed short stories ever, and even something like
>Catcher which appears to ramble is, on closer inspection, pretty well
>structured. I prefer it to the later, more boundless things.
>
>> "Each new line is a beginning and has nothing to do with any lines which
>> preceded it.  We all start new each time.  And, of course, it isn't all
>that
>> holy either.  The world can live much easier without writing than without
>> plumbing.  And some places in the world have very little of either.  Of
>> course, I'd rather live without plumbing but I'm sick."
>
>> --from _The Captain is out to lunch and the sailors have taken over the
>> ship_
>
>> Anyway. . . would anyone consider the above passage "Salingeresque?"
>
>Hmmm .... it does have the colloquial tone of either Catcher or De-Daumier
>Smith, but ... I dunno. I think it was Will who best summed up
>Salingeresque - it has a beginning, middle and end - i.e. he's a pretty
>hard writer to characterise.
>
>Just for you I may give Bukowski another go (:
>
>Camille
>verona_beach@geocities.com
>@ THE ARTS HOLE
>www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
>THE INVERTED FOREST
>www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest

I forgot that I already sent you the Bukowski quote.  Please disregard my
last post.  Yes, give Buk another shot!  Try _Notes of a Dirty Old Man_.