Re: Try listening

Gasp! What tha hey-ell is this...a Salinger discussion? Here?

I think I can buy your description of Salinger's amateur readers. The
"why" question is indeed good -- why them? Precisely because they won't
look too long or too hard?

I don't recall psychoanalysis as a discipline showing up in any of
Salinger's work (that I've read) with any positive connotations.
Analysts are about as bad as literary critics, so far as I can tell, in
Salinger's world -- they all "analyze," good old apple eaters they are.
 Seems like Muriel's mother kept in close touch with her analyst about
Seymour, but there's some ambivalence about this since he offed himself.
 Was the analyst right, or a little piece of the puzzle that drove him
to it?

Makes me think Salinger's preference for the "fair weather" or "amateur"
reader who reads and runs and his distrust of literary critics and
psychoanalysts all come from the same place.

Jim

John Gedsudski wrote:

> 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

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Received on Fri Mar 7 16:17:43 2003