Subject: Poelicing the Story
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@english.uga.edu)
Date: Fri May 19 2000 - 23:51:50 GMT
"J. Thomas Hummer" wrote:
> Hello, someone rang? :-o
A lurking lawyer? How absolutely devious!
According to Poe's definition, "Bfish" is not a successful short story
(or it is objectionable, or it is perhaps not a short story at all).
Poe and
I are in agreement on this point, because even though Salinger achieves
something (at least) of the effect he desires, the animus of the story
itself is hopelessly fragmented and unsettled. So unsettled that if it
had been one of Salinger's later works, I'd be inclined to hail it as
the kind of genius a man achieves when a good lifetime's toil in the
trenches renders his digging there incomprehensible for the ordinary
soldier
and useless for the general, while in fact his digging is superb digging
and will soon become a model for the only way to dig. But "Bfish" is
the work of
Salinger's hot youth, and as much as I love the story, I think it is a
lucky accident that it works at all.
Tremble, and depart,
-- Matt Kozusko
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