Re: The Inverted Forest

Jim I don't know where you get the autobiographical theme a la Salinger and
Ford. JDS is a well known teetotaler...

>
>--- James Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
> > Oh, I think the parallels between Seymour/Ford may
> > go beyond both of
> > them being poets. There was a kindness about Ford
> > that attracted him to
> > C. that's somewhat Seymourish, and C. was a woman
> > not too dissimilar
> > from Seymour's Muriel. Both were emotionally
> > disturbed. I suspect
> > Seymour preferred the presence of children and his
> > family to generic
> > adult society, as did Ford. I think the nature of
> > their disturbance was
> > somewhat different, though.
>
>
>now that i think of it, in 'bananafish' we don't know
>seymour is a poet. we know he reads poetry (in
>german) and that he's read eliot. it's a story of a
>damaged, sensitive world war 2 vet. isn't 'forest'
>pre-ww2?

Yes, it is. The story takes place sometime in the 1920s, i believe. Also,
Salinger wrote it, or at least finished it in 1946. I know this because I
have had the opportunity to read some of his letters and the story is
completed about the same time "Slight Rebellion Off Madison" was Okd by the
New yorker. He worked on it for about 6 months probably more or so he tells
Maxwell.

>
>there we seem to be dealing with some artistic
>pathology (if that's the right word) for an
>unexplainable, late-blooming poetic genius. and its
>demise.
>
>i realize many people view seymour as you describe
>above, but i personally don't see the retreat from
>adults and excessive preference for his family and
>children. he seems to have been a functioning
>professor and an okay soldier (until the mysterious
>'bananafish' end). granted, much of the time we see
>him only through the eyes of buddy, and as a child,
>and so we don't get to view him much with other
>adults.

No, but those diary entries are useful. He suspects people of "consipring to
make him happy, a paranoiac in reverse" what do you make of this? Also, he
needs M to be indiscriminating. But he watches her dissolve during some
cheesy movie they are at and he knows it's hopeless.

>
>i see seymour as eminently sane (this said on the
>anniversary of his death). the suicide per se doesn't
>bother me as much as muriel being there.
>
>

Seymour is a classic lunatic. One who carries out a premeditated (what
suicide isn't?) murder during a vacation, spending his days and nights not
cavorting with his beautiful wife but playing the piano in the Ocean Room.
Waht's this business about being too happy? Reminds me of Buddy in SAI...

>
>
>
>
> > Bunny criticizes his work for not
> > being "meaty" enough.
> > That was probably the saddest part of the story to
> > me -- his creativity
> > was being ripped off by this woman. His wife had
> > nothing but adoration
> > for his poetry, and now he's subject to critique
> > from an inferior talent
> > that lives with him day in, day out. I still had
> > the feeling he was
> > stuck with Bunny -- no going back -- because she had
> > more and deeper
> > hooks into Ford, being more of a kindred spirit, but
> > that this isn't
> > necessarily a positive thing.

Ford says it's due to 'The Brain', the reason why he won't go back to
Corrine. Those memories of his mother that gave him nightmares and all that
anguish. I really like how Salinger givs us Robert to narrate the story.
Salinger's strength as a writer-and it's a BIG one- is narration. He does it
again in "The Inverted Forest". Robert warns C early on. He even describes
what kind of poet he is, one that is functioning under the dead-weight of
beauty. So he can't live with anything but...

Until Ford drinks and then loses his sense of taste, sells out, marries a
slut and there you have it another stop on Salinger's boulevard of broken
dreams.

Seems as if Muriel wouldn't want S to write best selling poems. She probably
couldn't have cared less what he wrote, so long as he made reservations for
dinner. Her mom was the critic, M was just a product. Although I'll bet she
had nice long legs just like Corrine. She had to be under 30, too. I found
that revealing in Inverted. Bunny is actually in her mid 30s. To Salinger
all women are damaged goods by then.

-ADS

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Received on Tue Mar 18 19:50:46 2003