Re: Try listening

some time ago, Jim said:
>Anyway, I mean the dedication that asks the amateur reader to split the
>book four ways with his wife and children? May have been to Raise High or
>Nine Stories...the details escape me. Kim knows :). This would be an
>appeal to readers. I'd agree Hapworth was authorial self indulgence --
>failure to consider the reader much at all.

It may be an appeal to readers. But what type? An "amateur" reader, whom
according to Salinger are rare, is one who won't have the time nor the
ability to criticize his work. One who may read what Buddy writes simply as
he wants it read. Because these types are similar to those who "read and
run" they must be in a hurry and won't take time to find the inadequacies in
his accounts of Seymour.
Yet, in Seymour:An Introduction, Buddy also praises his dying friend, the
"fair weather general reader" so he once again plays with those who want an
"introduction." After all, a fair-weather reader would only stay with him
through the good passages. So why does he pull for them?

There are not many passages in the novella to keep the most loyal Glass fan
interested, and failing an introduction, he also makes sure the
fair-weathered reader, his "last confidant" is long gone.

>
>If it's any comfort you and Scottie's BSing about Hapworth got me reading
>it again. As fiction it's annoying, but as Glass Family Archive it does
>indeed give you a lot. Young, horny, 7 year old Seymour almost confesses
>to an Oedipal complex that'd really explain his future relationship with
>women, though I don't think Salinger was into psychoanalytic theory...
>

I am waiting to read about that "very consequential party" Buddy mentions.
It may have been the one that propelled those Glass kids to celebrity status
(maybe an agent from Australia made a disovery?).

Hapworth 16 1924 is, no joke, the real "introduction" to Seymour.
I wish I read it before Billy Black decided to disfigure a girl,
revolutionize a radio show, refuse his beautiful wife sex, then bring a
handgun to his honeymoon and off himself.
Chronologically, it would work better to read this one first.
Also, I wonder what you mean when saying "Salinger wasn't into
psychoanalytic theory". While I think he was interested in psychoanalytic
theory, it's unlikely he could stomach the generic form of analysis Rhea
ascribed to.

Cordially,

John Gedsudski
Adjunct Professor of Sciolism
Northern Philisita Community College
501 Boorish Drive
NY,NY

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Received on Fri Mar 7 16:08:36 2003