Subject: who's Seymour?
From: JJ Flikweert (jjf@HASKONING.nl)
Date: Thu Jun 15 2000 - 12:12:44 GMT
Hi all,
I'm one of those mysterious lurkers, but now and then I like to speak
up. Also, I'm an amateur reader, so bear with me.
The last two months or so, there have been *quite* a lot of posts
regarding the identity of Seymour and the authorship of Buddy. I
remember that, when reading the Glass stories for the first time, I
was almost sure that this whole family structure had to be
autobiographical (being from The Netherlands I didn't know much
about Salinger's life). It isn't of course - I found out from the BBC
documentary and the Hamilton book that JD only has one sister, I
think.
Then I thought: isn't it completely obvious that all the Glass family
members are intended to portray aspects of Salinger's own
personality? To me this started to seem indeed completely obvious. I
read in Hamilton that some critics at the time offered this theory as
well. So why is it never mentioned on this list? Is it too obvious? Too
section mannish or not section mannish enough?
In fact, this post is a reply to Josh's "snip" from the home page
regarding the identity of Sergeant X:
> He's not Seymour.
>
> Seymour is dead by 1950, when Esme sends Sergeant X the
wedding invitation. Besides this compelling reason, there are other
pieces of evidence:
etc.
Seymour (or: the war veteran aspect of JD's personality) is dead by
1950, and so is the war veteran aspect of the personality of the
author of For Esme... But the Buddy aspect of JD's personality isn't -
he's the author of the story. The other pieces of evidence re. X's
identity seem to me to be irrelevant details.
I'd love to hear what you people think.
Bye,
JJF
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