Re: Catcher Paper

blah b b blah (jrovira@juno.com)
Tue, 16 Mar 1999 23:07:59 -0500 (EST) 

Thanks for the reply, Camille.  Emma's eye colors aren't a problem to
me...my wife's eyes are hazel and tend to "change colors" depending on
what she's wearing and her mood.

And I won't go beyond that point comparing her to Emma.

heh :)

I don't think Holden would be staying with DB, that seemed impossible to
me, but the connection between Holden living in Hollywood and whining
about phonies is pretty interesting :)  Holden's lung problems were with
"almost getting t.b", which was a VERY big deal in the 50s in America, I
believe.  Very serious.  So if Holden's parents were wealthy and
"concerned" in the proper manner they'd readily hand Holden over to the
"experts" for "treatment."  

I saw this attitude in my own parents.  They read Dr. Spock like it was
the Bible or something, simply because his opinions were supposedly
"scientific" in nature and he was an "expert" in his subject.   

Regarding non-rationality and anti-intellectualism -- I don't think this
stands in opposition to the use of intelligence.  Remember Salinger's
study of Eastern philosophies is broader than Zen.  In the Bhagavad Gita
and (I think) at least some of the principle Upanishads intelligence is
touted as a necessary quality for spiritual development.

Here's a quote --

"The senses of the wise man obeys his mind, his mind obeys his intellect,
his intellect obeys his ego, and his ego obeys the Self"

(Katha) 

Of course I'm not going to say you **have to** be "smart" to "advance,"
and there are different paths in Hinduism (different yogas) for a pretty
good reason, but just that natural intelligence isn't necessarily a bad
thing in this philosophical framework.

Franny and Zooey -- the one that gave us "section men" to begin with --
was very strongly influenced by the BG, which seemed to me to clearly
uphold the role and value of the intellect in spiritual development.  

And now we have to think about Saligner's characters.  They're mostly not
just intelligent.   They're beyond intelligent, almost beyond genius at
times.  Talented, average looking to good looking (though Seymour may
have been on the down side of average, Zooey and Franny were both rather
impressive, esp. Zooey) -- I mean, every single Glass child was on the
radio as a child prodigy.  

So section manism isn't about intelligence.  It's about a particular kind
of pretense in the use of your intelligence.  Lane being the principle
section man here, he "ruined" literature for his students.  Largely, I
get the impression, from a tone of cold disdain communicated through a
superior attitude toward his subject.  I think it's not so much
intelligence, but cleverness being paraded around to elevate the self
(ego in the above quote) above the Self and others.        

Part of what I was thinking while I was writing that was that Salinger
may have held to this value system before being attracted to Zen (and
other eastern philosophies).  Thus, they appealed to him for that reason.
 I tend to attribute the loopy characteristics of Catcher to Holden's
personality.  I mean, it all seems of a piece.  I'd like to explore the
theme and role of the entertainer in society in Salinger's fiction, and
the fact that Holden was such a Big Fat Liar and self-consciously so. 
That makes him a storyteller.  The Glasses were an entertainment family
as well.  The value system I think this entails is the understanding of
people as people, on an emotional level, apart from a specific, organized
system of thought.      

And Yeah, I think which book you "enter" Salinger through does make a
difference.  But after reading everything I could find (including Sgt.
Bilko) I think I've come to the conclusion that Salinger does what
Pynchon does -- create characters through their voice.  So Catcher will
be radically different from, say, Franny, which should be radically
different from Zooey, which is radically different from Raise High...

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999 20:10:58 -0500 Robert Morris <winboog@gis.net>
writes:
>
>
>>Man, I can hardly imagine entering Salingeralia via `Franny and 
>Zooey'
>>rather than TCIR. Sorta like judging Scorsese solely on the basis of
>>`Kundun'. It'd give you a whole different expectation.
>>
>
>
>    I guess i'll pipe up here and say that I read the entire Glass 
>family
>saga, hapworth included before getting around to CITR. Perhaps it did 
>effect
>my view of the world as Catcher is my least favorite piece of JD's 
>work.
>Sorry kids.
>
>
>                  Roberto

Jim  

"The written word is a power of such magnitude that only pedants would
try to reduce it to rules.  Or the French."

--F.K.

___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]