Subject: Re: More problems....
From: Sasha Stone (sstone@primenet.com)
Date: Tue Mar 04 1997 - 00:13:43 GMT
On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Kerry O'Keeffe wrote:
>
> Sasha and all,
> thanks for the reply. You assertion that Salinger finds the whole
> thing grotesque I agree with entirely and this is maybe the reason I find
> Vonnegut that much easier to swallow. Vonnegut's use of black humour to
> sugar the pill is what makes his work so endearing, whereas at times I
> find reading Salinger is hard work.
>
Yeah, I know what you mean. See, I think Vonnegut's anthropological
outlook makes the world seem absurd rather than tragic. I think Salinger
sees it as unbearable and therefore tragic. I like both of them as
writers because I feel alternately as they do - some days I look around
at everybody in their cars (I live in LA) going to work and all I can see
are these hairles monkeys heading to the place that will give them the
money for food and to catch a mate. It's hilarious sometimes. And when
I'm at the beach all I can think of is a public television voice-over
saying something like: "the hominid mating ritual often includes wearing
pieces of cloth that barely cover the genitals. The female might walk up
and down the beach in hopes of drawing the attention of the male." So
you immediately see a world of metaphors. And then other days it's all
too much - seeing this guy sleeping on the grass with swollen legs -
nowhere to go, hearing about a burned baby in a dumpster, watching the
rich get richer. It can get to you. It really can. Thank god for
brilliant artists for relieving some of the burden by taking it on
themselves.
> Judging by your other messages you have alot to
say about the Gen
X > thing. Speaking as an English outsider I tend to equate this with the
> whole slacker mularky (please put me straight if this is not the case). I
> can see how salinger gets tied in with the whole thing, however, I am
> always wary of people who make a tidy sum out of peddling disillusionment
> and disaffection from ivory towers e.g. Winona Ryder (oops!). I have read
> the Douglas Coupland book and something bothers me about the message put
> across. I cant see what hope there is for the next lot if everyone sick
> of the way things are just drops out and cultivates their own private
> World. Its the easiest thing going to become cynical and aloof when
> things are getting you down, and this is coming from someone often accused
> of having the selfsame traits. I really dont want to sound
> self-opinionated about all this, but it is something I feel strongly
> about.
>
Yeah, I hear you. Don't you sometimes feel both ways, though? And I
don't know anything about gen-x except that I am supposed to be part of
it. I know what you mean about not trusting those who peddle
disillusionment (nicely said, btw) from ivory towers. Part of what
irritated me about the Salinger knock-offs like Bret-Easton Ellis and his
ilk (apart from their inability to write) was that they came off (to me
because I was poor and now I guess I'm just broke) as snotty, whiney rich
kids who never found adulthood all it was cracked up to be because they
suddenly realized the world didn't revolve around them and wasn't like a
TV sitcom. There's got to be something more than our own personal
experience. We are part of life, part of nature - our brains are like
these seething organs in our heads that get pretty bored just sitting
there - they need constant stimulation. But there is a bigger world, a
bigger system of life that simply does not know we exist. Ah, but I
digress.
> BTW I havent actually read Eliot's Wasteland, but now have a copy to hand,
> so Ill let you know how I get on.
>
Okay. It's a little confusing in places and sort of complicated but it's
lovely as is his Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
>
> P.S. I thimk, therefore I am.
"Betsy had a fruit cocktail. I had a piece of apple pie with cheese on
it. She could have had anything she wanted."
Sasha
(hope this post wasn't too muddled...)
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