Subject: Dream Catcher
AStranger2@aol.com
Date: Mon Jun 17 2002 - 20:03:44 EDT
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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