Re: The Inverted Forest

Tell me about this projected war novel.

That thing about Buddy "doing everything Seymour did" -- I wonder if
this reinforces a dichotomy between storyteller and poet in Salinger's
fiction. The poet is representing beauty itself, our two storytellers
(Robert Waner and Buddy Glass) seem obsessed with representing the life
of the poet. Seymour's letter to Buddy in S:AI seems to take Buddy as a
writer seriously -- like he's creating his own independent art -- but at
the same time there's this undercurrent of needing to keep Buddy on
track as a storyteller. He needs to be telling that one story he most
wants to hear himself (btw, I read this part of S:AI to my composition
classes). I get the feeling he may have lost sight of it to bring
Seymour back through his fiction and figure out what pushed him to suicide.

Jim

Aaron Sommers wrote:

>
> Especially Les. Give the old man a break, he was likely right on
> target telling S. that Buddy only misses Seymour and no one else in
> the family. Even Zooey later says "[Buddy] does everything Seymour did"
> There is no making sense of the suicide without the war novel awaiting
> our readership and Salinger's demise. These are the years M waits for
> him, he is in combat and also breaks down. Buddy can not be relied on
> for our understanding of Seymour Glass, and SAI affirms this.
>
>
> -ADS

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Received on Wed Mar 19 15:36:24 2003