Re: JDS's use of Capitals - Buddhism link
WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Wed, 11 Mar 1998 08:01:09 -0700 (MST)
Warm fondness in welcoming you camille, and thanks for the good post--it
makes a good deal of sense, though I like it as part of another point some
salinger genius (I'm sorry, I think it may have been helena but I'm not
sure) made earlier--that the capitatlization is a character trait of
buddy--if we use that and combine your thinking, I can honestly say I've
received a rich reply to my original q--thanks for your help and welcome
to the list, will
On Fri, 6 Mar 1998, Camille Scaysbrook wrote:
> I was reminded of the whole capitals argument today in a lecture on
> writing of the English Renaissance, in which abstract entities such as
> Fate and Fortune were capitalized to make them into personifications. In
> relation to Salinger, I think this is relevant, turning a word into an
> entity called that by that word - thus `soon' becomes an entity called
> `Soon' - be that a state of mind or whatever. It has the effect of
> opening the word or phrase up to a new meaning by encompassing many
> things under that `entity' - it becomes a metonym rather than a word or
> phrase with only one meaning.
>
> This also ties in very nicely with Salinger's Buddhist interests, one of
> the main axioms of which is `No reliance on words' - obviously a
> conundrum for a writer ! - the implication being that words are far to
> broad to express the smaller subtleties and complexities of the
> universe. I believe that through his capitalization, Salinger in effect
> is trying to defeat this conundrum of the narrowness of words by turning
> them into entities or concepts.
>
> P.S. I'm new to Bananafish (I'm an Australian student at Sydney
> University) so please give me a Warm Welcome and a late-blooming bunch
> of parentheses. (:
>
> Camille
>