Subject: Cheever and Salinger
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 20 2002 - 09:56:24 EDT
Chris --
I'd say some of Cheever's fiction was written about people very much like
those who populate Salinger's work -- semi-affluent or middle to upper
middle class northeasterners. There are some similarities in style too --
if you compare, say, Nine Stories to some of Cheever's short stories. I
haven't read Cheever in awhile so this is off the cuff...but if you want to
read Cheever, I'd start with his collected stories. You can find used
copies everywhere cheap...that's been my experience, anyway...both
hardcover and paperback. I'm not so much claiming influence either way,
but just observing similarities in style that I think arose independently.
Probably a reflection of the type of stuff that people were publishing back
then.
I don't know why Salinger chose "six" Bananafish, but it's not the thing
that I'd necessarily feel needs to have meaning ascribed to it. The number
of bananafish doesn't seem significant because I don't think the number 6
recurs in the story at all. It's not impossible that this was a nod to
Hemingway of some sort, but that'd just take a bit of research to prove.
Like a list of significant similarities between that particular work by
Hemingway and this particular work by Salinger, or a reference by Salinger
in personal correspondence about this work by Hemingway that shows positive
influence. SOMETHING :). I don't think thematic similarities are enough
to show this kind of specific influence...I think we'd need to work on the
sentence level, even -- something that reflected definite influence. It's
not impossible but the bare assertion isn't enough.
Jim
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