Re: Chapter 19
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Fri, 06 Mar 1998 23:43:15 +1100
----------
> From Camille <verona_beach@geocities.com
> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> Subject: Re: Chapter 19
> Date: Friday, 6 March 1998 16:07
I agree - it's never made clear exactly who Holden is talking to and I
think if JDS had wanted to make it clear he would have. The idea occured to
me that the whole of Holden's experience is a kind of psychoanalytical case
study - the world (i.e. the reader) is Holden's analyst - because what is
it we're doing when we mail places like this ? We're psychoanalysing Holden
(and you could say, through him, Salinger ...)
Camille
>
> I have never been absolutely convinced that Holden is talking to a
> psychiatrist in California, even though Cliff's Notes perpetuates that
theory.
> There could be others. The first time I read the book, years ago, that
notion
> went right past me and I thought he was simply talking directly to the
reader,
> a not-unused literary device. I know there are things that don't fit in
with
> that idea, but there are things that don't fit in with the
psychiatrist-in-
> California theory too, such as the sentence you cite.
>
> I haven't made a study of this, though probably some of the academics on
this
> list have, and I'd be curious about what they have to say.
>
> pauline