Re: Franny & Section Men
Camille Scaysbrook (the_globe@hotmail.com)
Sun, 25 Jul 1999 02:32:16 -0700 (PDT)
I've always thought that Franny is probably the most perfect of Salinger's
short stories. There's nary a footprint wrong, if I ever have a short story
class, this is one of the one's that'll definitely be on my curriculum.
(Ironic really given its anti-section-man-ism (: ) The pregnancy issue
frustrated me a lot when it was first raised - and it is something I never
would have noticed for myself - because without it is such a perfect and
spiritual story. That angle seems to cheapen it; turn it into just another
Saturday Evening Post melodrama. But now, I think it has been absorbed into
the story somehow, to illuminate one of the story's main themes -
authenticity in art, the idea of those who Don't Get It and those who Do.
You're right though. Damn fine story, probably the last of Salinger's
perfect, compact little packages.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
citycabn wrote:
>Last week, I reread "Franny" for the first time in 25 years. Wow, what a
>story! And what consummate writing! After such a long time, it was new,
>and yet familiar (due to those innumerable readings when the Glass
Illness
>was going strong in my early twenties).
>
>If I am not mistaken, never once in the story is she referred to as
Glass.
>Only mentions "anybody I respected--my brothers for example." (We learn
>Lane's last name; what not Franny's?)
>
>Of course, I tried to pay attention re the pregnant-or-not controversy.
I
>think JDS rules pregnancy out but you really have to search for it (which
I
>imagine is on purpose). In Franny's letter to Lane, she says "[Mother]
>sends her regards, so you can *relax* about that Friday night. I don't
even
>think they heard us come in." And at the close, we hear Lane, "You know
how
>long it's been? When was that Friday night? Way the hell early last
>month..." I don't think Franny would be telling Lane to "relax about
that
>Friday" if she had missed her period.
>
>The paragraph re the poet and beauty is memorable, and made me recall 2
>statements from"The Inverted Forest": "A poet doesn't invent his
poetry--he
>finds it." And: "...There's hardly a line of verse. It's nearly all
>poetry. He writes under pressure of dead-weight beauty."
>
>As for section men, this might sound crass, or tinged with sour grapes.
But
>here goes: I still believe the majority--not all, mind you-- basically,
if
>you boil it down, are buggering the author, and trying to get into the
>pants of select coeds.
>
>And, yes, I was glad to see again that very first mention in my life of
>Rilke, "what this bastard Rilke was all about." Oddly, in many ways, he
>*was* a bastard. But for my money, he still is, to quote Seymour, the
only
>great poet of the century.
>
> "Zooey" soon, I hope.
>
>
>
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com