Subject: Salinger & Holocaust
From: Benjamin Samuels (madhava@sprynet.com)
Date: Thu Mar 30 2000 - 10:00:40 EST
> Denis, I've been asked to visit the Holocaust museum and write a piece on
> it for War, Literature & the Arts and would love to find a tangible
> Salinger angle to insert in the essay...the only thing that comes to mind
> is "A girl I knew." The only time JDS really deals with a Jewish issue
> directly is in "DATD" but I hope to be corrected...will
A less direct connection could be fleshed out here is an examination of
Slinger's characters in crisis with Society and that Society having been
largely influenced by WWII and the Holocaust.
Denis (whose every post it is now my theory causes a window to pop up in
outlookexpress stating that to display all the characters (that is letters)
correctly, I will have to download three megs worth of Japanese Language
diaplay program. I am really all alone in this? You sure you don't have a
secret japanese Haiku as part of your signature?) wrote:
"One of the things that strikes me about Salinger is how
we have what is for most part a fiction of psychological
crisis and dysfunction, but how little he gives us about
what is at root of crisis. I have never felt for example
that 'phoniness' fully explains why Holden is as agitated as
he is about school, classmates, girls, etc. . At what point
does 'elusiveness' become a matter of 'avoidance' or 'denial'
(I don't mean this in sense of denying Holocaust)? "
>>>>>>
This is a good question. I feel that most of the problems that Holden and
the lot of other Salinger characters have are not so much in themselves but
in the complexity of society. If Holden did move out to the country and
become a simple farmer would he still be so crazy, or is that "getting
adjusted" (in the most sinister pychotheraputic use of the phrase) to a
society gone crazy (ie Holocaust) is what would really be crazy for him? If
society seemed to have gotten so crazy that it was driving Salinger himself
crazy, would moving out of it as much as possible relieve that craziness?
(sorry, couldn't resist that one) Take any of the Glass characters and ask
the same, really. If Franny found a simple life away from society would she
still find herself in so much crisis or is her crisis really in response to
not what is inside her, but what is outside of her.
I'm afraid the fact is that it is not so easy to turn away from society.
There is something inside of us that is deeply connected to the goings on in
society and is not so easily trascended, nice as the solitary country life
seems. Whether it is the result of lifetimes and lifetimes of participating
in the game of society and any karmic debt built up in that time so to
speak, or the simple but strong influence of having spent one's childhood
and formative years already connected to society, or even a compassionate
and deeply compelling concern for the welfare of society and it's
realtionship to the possibly delicate ecosystem of the planet that sustains
all life here our own psyche's seem indelibly linked to this society.
Which, in Salinger's case was played out in the drama and glory and tragedy
and comedy of WWII. What a show that must have been!
What do you think Will, enough material for an essay? Good luck.
Love,
Madhava
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