Subject: Salinger and Kabbalah [was Re: Cheever and Salinger]
From: LR Pearson, Arts 99 (lp9616@bristol.ac.uk)
Date: Sun Jun 23 2002 - 08:43:30 EDT
On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 18:00:34 -0700 "L. Manning Vines"
<lmanningvines@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> So I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that it would have been
> a lot easier for Salinger to study the Vedas in the '50s and '60s than to
> study Kabbalah. It's possible, I think, that he hadn't even heard of it.
> Had any of you who were around then heard anything about it before the '70s?
>
There is a character in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet - I think
it's Benjamin but it's a long time since I've read it so I could be
wrong - who studies the Kabbalah. He is supposed to be a very learned
and very mystical man. All the same, Lawrence Durrell clearly knew
about it, and wasn't he writing in the thirties or forties? Even if it
wasn't very accessible in the fifties, Salinger might easily have heard
of it through Durrell, as I did, and it's possible that he would have
been drawn to find out more. It does seem a little unlikely to me,
because the Eastern influences in his writing are so very clear that
surely the same would be true of any link with Jewish mysticism.
Although, it is possible that he didn't want to point up these
connections even though they were of interest to him. He does seem to
have had a slightly uneasy relationship with his Jewishness.
Love, Lucy-Ruth
PS I just got my degree result and I got a 2:1, which I'm reasonably
pleased with. (For the non-English among you, a high 2:1 is more or
less equivalent to an A, a first would have been a distinction). I'm
currently taking a year out before going into postgrad studies and
deciding what direction I want to go in, so may be winging my way over
the Atlantic yet. Expect copious questions from me over the next year
about the American graduate system!
L-R x x x
----------------------
LR Pearson, Arts 99
lp9616@bristol.ac.uk
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