Re: Actually it was, "Sometimes I see me dead in the rain."


Subject: Re: Actually it was, "Sometimes I see me dead in the rain."
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Sat Jun 22 2002 - 01:42:08 EDT


Robert --

I think the phrase -- "turned his back on" Judaism -- may sound harsh,
but I didn't intend to sound like Salinger owed Judaism much of
anything. I meant it as a fact.

Salinger, it seems to me, was influenced by a tradition that draws from,
or makes some accomodation for or accounting of, all religious
traditions, but that's hardly the same as saying that Salinger himself
actually drew from all religious traditions. There's far more of the
Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita in Salinger than anything else.
Somewhat less of certain strains of Buddhism. Still less of
Christianity, but it's there. Even far less of Judaism, and it's hard
to find even a hint of Islam or Zoroastrianism. Ultimately, though, the
lenses through which Salinger viewed these other religious traditions
betray a primary orientation rather than a true pan-theism. And it's
eastern. He had one specific religion. He happened to have one that
tends to arrogate to itself the power to "properly" interpret all other
religious traditions.

Kinda like every other one, for that matter :).

JDS doesn't necessarily have to express outright admiration to reveal
influences.

Cecilia

<<Um, yeah. I have, actually. However, I don't think that Eco's grand
vision has anything to do with "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". You've
built a straw man by even mentioning it, in fact.>>

No, I never said that Eco's book had anything at all to do with
Salinger's story -- that's the straw man :) I meant to say it had a lot
to do with your reasoning. In Eco's book, you remember, a grand plot
was concocted by drawing vague associations that didn't exist, really,
outside the minds of the inventors of the plot. That's the point. It's
not that we can't make connections or that the possibility of
connections don't exist. It's that we can make ALL KINDS of connections
:). It takes work to pick out the ones that actually reflect the world
we live in (in this case, the story we're reading) and the ones we make
up by an almost free association process.

It's the difference between reading a slip of paper four centuries old
and seeing a secret code that tells us how to manipulate the earth's
tectonic plates, or a grocery list :).

<<However, to address your argument: that you can make numeric
connections
to *anything* doesn't mean that no connections exist. Especially in
Salinger, understanding the subtext often depends on ferreting out the
most insignificant details.>>

There's a difference between legitimate subtext and random association,
though. There's a difference between me saying "black" and you saying
"white," and both of us recognizing that the juxtaposition of black and
white in our conversation actually has more meaning than random
association.

<<The story (besides "A Perfect Day for
Bananafish") that best illustrates this point is "The Laughing Man".
Think about the baby carriage and the other tiny details that point to
the
reasons behind the breakup between the Chief and the Beaver-coated
heroine.>>

GOD I wish you'd expand on this :). See, THOSE kind of connections I
love to hear all day long because they seem to stay within the context
of the story. And I've had a hard time actually understanding the
reason behind the Chief's breakup with his girlfriend.

So if you want to develop this train of thought...please do :).

<<I've long thought that there was a meaning to the numbers in
bananafish,
and the Kabbalistic meaning to six seemed possible. It still does, in
fact, especially given Salinger's background.

Regards,
Cecilia.>>

OF COURSE it's possible :). Even given Robbie's very nice history of
Kabbalah in western society, it's still possible. But is it necessary
or justified? I'm not ruling out any possible connection, just saying
that particular one has as much merit as a connection to the book of
Revelation or Hemingway's use of the number 6 or some other fictional
character who had 6 fingers on his left hand. These kind of connections
are no different from me saying "black" and you saying "white." They
may as well be free association. Doesn't mean they mean anything,
though.

Jim

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