Franny & Section Men
citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Fri, 23 Jul 1999 19:02:32 -0700
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.