Subject: People who live in Glass houses & Incest
oconnort@nyu.edu
Date: Mon Mar 03 1997 - 23:22:05 GMT
Will said:
> Whenever critics slam salinger, they call the glass family
> incestuous and I just don't see it--not even when boo boo "put a wild hand
> inside the seat of his trousers, startling the boy considerably, but
> almost immediately withdrew it and decorously tucked in his shirt for
> him."
Indeed, I don't see it either. In fact, I've always considered the
label "incestuous" to be metaphorical when applied to Salinger -- never
literal. I interpret it as a comment on the intense, obsessive insularity
Of the Glass family, and nothing more.
And maybe I'm just cranky tonight, but when the critics start flinging
around terms like "incestuous," the remarks always taste faintly of sour
grapes....
When it comes to the kind of phallic imagery that Freud would have gloated
over as proof of Something Going On, I have always imagined JDS making
those sorts of references with a kind of glee, to see how academics will
react. It's a more subtle kind of reference than what he does, say, at
the start of "Seymour: An Introduction," with his swipe at beatniks and
Zen faddists.
--tim o'connor
-
To remove yourself from the bananafish list, send the command:
unsubscribe bananafish
in the body of a message to "Majordomo@mass-usr.com".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Oct 09 2000 - 14:59:58 GMT