Subject: Re: Cheever and Salinger
From: Chris Kubica (ckubica@insightbb.com)
Date: Fri Jun 21 2002 - 12:21:50 EDT
This is very interesting. I wish I had more to say, but I'm glad to see
someone running with my unacademic "hunch". ;)
Sincerely,
chris kubica
the fm pro, inc.
765-497-2294 (Phone)
425-671-5648 (Fax)
http://members.aol.com/thefmpro/
> From: Cecilia Baader <ceciliabaader@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
> Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 20:35:31 -0700 (PDT)
> To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
> Subject: Re: Cheever and Salinger
>
>
> --- Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>
> Oh, I think that with Salinger, you can't call anything insignificant.
>
> I'd never looked into it very carefully before, but "A Perfect Day for
> Bananafish" was written before he'd gotten very deeply into Eastern
> religion, so I think he was still operating on a Judeo-Christian symbolic
> platform.
>
> The Christian avenue turned up no leads, but when I started looking into
> the significance of the number six in the Jewish Kabbalah tradition, I
> found the tradition that there are six levels of the Jewish soul.
>
> And if the story of the bananafish is the story of soulsickness, that
> would make sense, yes? All six of the bananafish had eaten themselves to
> death, and so this is the end. He could try nothing more. It seems to me
> that this is simply another of the many clues to what Seymour is about to
> do, and why he is about to do it.
>
> I found a website that spoke of the six levels of healing, each of which
> gets more mystical as each descends into the deeper reaches of the soul.
> Here's an URL if you're interested:
>
> http://www.inner.org/6levels/level1.htm
>
>
> I know there's a few bananafish who certainly know more on the subject of
> Judaism than me. What do you think?
>
> Regards,
> Cecilia.
>
>
>
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