Subject: Re: Eric 'n' Seymour
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@virtual.park.uga.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 04 1997 - 16:58:39 GMT
Me:
> >Salinger would be a very poor writer if his readers could not describe his
> >characters' psyches, appearances, and generals "characteristics."
>
Steve:
> And if it was intentional?
You mean if Salinger chose to contstruct a character poorly or in such a
manner as to preclude his readers' getting any sense of who the character
was (in narrative terms, anyway)? I don't see that it's possible to do
such a thing, primarily because it is the nature of fiction to describe
what it presents in the course of its narrative. That is, when one writes
about a character (as one simply must do if one is going to discuss--even
to introduce--a character), one necessarily describes that character.
When you gesture toward someone (fictional or otherwise), you say
something about him--you have an implicit attitude, an implicit course of
action (credits to Kenneth Burke). You can't gesture toward someone
without offering information about him in some sense. Perhaps that
"information" is only your attitude--dislike, for example--toward that
person, but even this is information about that person's character
(relative to you).
I think I'm just misunderstanding you. How do you write about somebody in
such a manner as to subtract from the body of information available about
that character?
regarding visions of the Fat Lady:
>
> What's yours? An interesting thread: describe the Fat Lady.
(not very remarkable, but okay:)
Sitting in the summer heat, swatting flies, hair in a bun, flowery dress.
Drives a green 1972 station wagon with vynil seats. Lots of dilapitated
furniture on that porch, too.
Only some of these ideas come right from "Zooey." I think (though
I can't claim really to remember wit any accuracy) that my
conception/vision of the Fat Lady independent of F's and Z's is actually
quite similar to theirs.
I wrote, regarding Seymour's misclassification of the color of S's bathing
suit:
> > Ability to see beyond ordinary conceptions
> >of reality and difference (oh, my God! Seymour as the the precursor to
> >differance, Seymour as the unwitting deconstuctionist...). We can also
> >look at this as the *in*ability to see what everybody else in the West
> >plainly perceives. Salingerian translation: "blue, yellow, what's the
> >difference? I've got better things to think about."
Steve:
> Do you believe that? *Really?*
Yes. characters looking beyond the traditionally recognized physical
properties of an object and seeing instead the essence (spiritual or
otherwise--dasein?) of that object is a central concern in Salinger.
Seymour's mistake is perhaps intentional, but it carries the same message
as the haikus that Buddy discovers: difference is a worldly construction
useful only as far as we have worldly concerns. A person who has made/is
making notable spiritual progress (Po-Ling, Teddy, Seymour, D-D Smith,
blinded by the "crutches" of Western civilization--most successful
Salinger protagonists) sees beyond "illusory differences."
>....Perhaps what you note as playfulness
> comes a few paragraphs sooner?
I'm not following you here--I'll have a look at the story....
matt
------------------------------
mkozusko@virtual.park.uga.edu
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