Peripatetic Strongpoints
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Sun, 07 Jun 1998 12:26:16 -0400
Scottie Bowman wrote:
> Their essential action isn't even vivid dialogue - which is not
> Salinger's strong point anyway. They are principally about
> personality & character (of pretty unusual people at that) &
> the various internal pilgramages which they undertake.
Salinger's strong point (although it's a strong point with a wandering focus,
and it's likely to be different from moment to moment) is narration. He tells
stories very well. He does excel at dialogue, and while the Salinger dialogue
is something of a trademark, his genius is in the coordination of dialogue and
narrative--of dialogue and what Carole Marcus calls "lousy glib[ness]."
Buddy describes the glibness as "cleverness." When the narrator/buddy of F&Z
says that Bessie left the bathroom "rather as though, after being in makeshift
wet dock for days, the Queen Mary had just sailed out of, say, Walden Pond,"
he's being clever (90). Elsewhere, Buddy expresses his doubts about his
cleverness...but that cleverness the animus of the Salinger story, I think.
Ultimately, it's the one component that is always there.
Scottie points to "personality & character" and "internal pilgramages," which
are readily available in most fiction, though I agree they're especially
remarkable in Salinger. And there's probably one chance in a hundred that each
individual reader and lover of Salinger wouldn't feel violated and betrayed by
the actor or actress who brought the character to the screen.
mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu