Subject: Re: Dream Catcher
From: midge immington (midgeimmington@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jun 18 2002 - 12:37:17 EDT
Hi!
I do think the Joyce Maynard book is worth reading (especially by young women who might receive, out of the blue, very complimentary letters from Famous Authors, referring to her as a "landsman".). Granted, I agree with Will in his review he listed as a link, that Maynard's book doesn't provide literary analysis, etc. But on the whole, I feel the book is valid, and a must read by anyone who is taken with Salinger. In this he said, she said situation (with the he said being silent), I still have to say, perhaps because I'm a woman, that if I had to choose in the Joyce vs. Jerry case, I'd side with Joyce. After all, he certainly knew what he was doing with that first letter; as if he didn't know where that was going to lead....
Bye!
Midge
AStranger2@aol.com wrote: Hi Midge,
Thanks for the wonderful response. You were right about "Dream Catcher" in that she does tend to go on and on at times about insignificant details about her life--some of this I think she does simply to be perverse. She knows readers have purcashed this bio to learn about JDS, and I think, with willful resentment she has to satisfy herself that you are actually buying the book to learn about her.
Actually, I set the book down more than once and could only push forward in spots by skimming, which is not usually my wont. Towards the end, however, there were some very fascinating points I could relate to.
She talked about the paralysis of perfectionism--the inability to start or finish projects due to overanalysis and the vision that it must be just so. She credited one of her professors in helping her with a simple, almost koan-like question:
"How do you eat an elephant?"
The answer was you cut it up in small pieces, and eat it one bite at a time. The Salinger way, she commented, was either to eat it whole or die trying, or decide elephant-eating was beneath contempt, and therefore not worth doing at all. It struck a chord in me because there are times I have looked at a particular project this way. Thankfully, I've learned to take smaller bites.
A friend of mine refuses to read the book or even hear of it. (He was especially peeved when I told him that JDS once drank his own urine.) But while I agree the writing should stand on its own to a degree, when your talking of good literature, you're also talking life philosophies. So, there is a curiosity if the philosopher lives the philosophy. Kierkegaard once said that a philosopher builds a fine palace, which he admires from a shack next door--I think this was in "Seymour--An Intro", but am not sure.
But another important thing that was really driven home to me by the book was the indisputable fact that JDS is no closer to finding that "truth" than he ever was. When we read "Franny and Zooey" we feel as if Franny's realization that everyone is the "fat lady" means she has been enlightened, has reached a "satori" of some sort. Or like Teddy, seeing God everywhere, where a waiter is pouring a glass of water and pouring God into God...so it is somewhat settling and unsettling to find JDS so up and down spiritually, and still, desparately searching...despite all the various religious tomes he's greedily digested...
I once read where JDS was revolted by his initial meeting with Hemingway because he was shooting the heads off of live chickens. Don't know if the story's apocraphyl or not, but sometimes we do have to separate the work from the artist. Does it really make a difference is Lewis Carrol were a pediphile? Maybe.
JDS's masogynistic tendencies bother me a bit...well, maybe more than a bit. He certainly seems unable to maintain a healthy relationship. I think he tends to place women (like Jane) on a pedestal, then can't deal with it if they actually move their kings off the back row. I've known men that never feel the same about their wife once they've seen them "sitting on the porcelain throne"--as if women had different biological functions than men.
I'm thinking about getting the Joyce Maynard work. Is it worthwhile?
Well, I hope I haven't bored you to tears with this overly-long e-mail. Looking over it, it's probably two words shy of "War and Peace". Hey, if you can't be witty, you can be verbose.
Nice to "meet" you,
robert
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