Subject: Re: Salinger's reclusiveness
From: Jordie Chambers (c_jordie@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun May 13 2001 - 04:32:03 GMT
Pleased to meet you, Suzanne. I think we're in agreement on most of this,
so I'll relax a bit. It's my nature to bicker though, so here goes.
>Well, this was a very observant, thought-provoking note..
>
>At 03:48 AM 5/12/2001 -0400, Jordie Chambers wrote:
>>Many people think that Salinger betrayed his readership by refusing to
>>publish any of his later works, and refusing to read the buckets of mail
>>he'd receive. What strikes people as some kind of insult is he left
>>without an explanation, which presupposes that he owed something to his
>>readership after drawing them in.
>
>I think people feel admiration for his ability and appreciation of the way
>he touched them. If you admire someone, you want them to be around to soak
>up that admiration. Hey, we appreciate you! Why'd you leave!? True, to
>actually expect that he'd hang around, not just *feel* like he should, does
>turn the feeling into a sort of pretentious demanding.
If you read Don Delillo's Underworld, where all the fans at the baseball
game are trying to communicate with the baseball players by dropping garbage
on them, you might get a feel for what Salinger had to deal with. It's not
innocent, people want a piece of him, and he could only give so much to
specific people. I don't blame him in any way. Just because you can stick
yourself in his position doesn't mean everybody can.
>
>>[..] Holden wondered how a person can keep his instincts sharp in a place
>>that ate the cream or the sludge of the phonies that rose to the
>>top. Reference to the Indians with 'big bang' suggests some kind of
>>parallel between childhood and the aboriginals. In contrast, he speaks of
>>the stage as a sort of warped mirror that can only reflect the truth for
>>Holden. The phonies have lost in the game Holden is trying to keep sacred
>>to himself, and Holden is losing in the phony's game, causing him to feel
>>lonely. However he is adamant in his will to stay young.
>>[..] how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save
>>guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do
>>was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and
>>congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters
>>and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you
>>weren't being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn't."'
>
>I think that fame and accolades have to be very distracting. Some of the
>things said can be out of synch with reality yet you can still feel *great*
>about them being said of you. You have to keep tabs on what you think and
>accolades can make it hard to even hear yourself think in the first place.
>(Not that I've had tons of fame and accolades ;-)
>
It's not being out of synch with reality, it's losing the hunger to achieve
your artistic vision. Sure, things change, but that artistic vision should
remain wondrous and mystical even in the mastery of the craft. Leonard
Cohen, as much as he is disrespected, is one of the few popular artists I
know that haven't Updiked it. He's even more enraged now at the distance
from his mysticism, which is good! Don Delillo is the atavistic super dude
of literature. His latest book is a breath of fresh air. After White Noise
he wrote a book called Players which sort of kingpinned his position in the
literary arts, but he kept his feet on the ground. It is possible, it's
just much harder.
Take a world class hairdresser for instance. She gets these contracts from
people who know nothing of her work but are assured that she is the best in
all of France. There is a better place to be for every kind of artist or
craftsman, but that doesn't necessarily mean the haircuts they give will be
a hit with everybody. The hairdresser will probably style the hair in the
fashion of her mentors, who are so bored they are trying different things in
order to sta interested in the business. It's a hit because a popular
artisan made it a hit, via hype, not because it's the cream of the crop, it
is just different. The fashion industry is another example of hype leading
the market. Now I say that Don Delillo is atavistic even though he is
creative, but what I mean is he is out to satisfy his chosen reader. He
hasn't Updiked it or Barthed it or puked some ungodly bitterness from the
heat of the publishing industry. Salinger, with Hapworth anyway, probably
got sick of his readers. It isn't a surprise that he quit publishing
shortly after writing it. We can only hope he preserved his Indian
instincts.
>
>>Furthermore, what seems like a preoccupation in Holden's hesitation to
>>embark in a world of phonies is repeated in Ernie's bar. He's listening
>>to this piano player that plays as if everyone's clapping, 'I don't even
>>think he knows any more when he's playing right or not. I partly blame it
>>on those dopes that clap their heads off -- they'd foul up anybody.'
>
>Actually, being a fan of Catcher and not of Salinger's later stuff, I think
>this may have happened to Salinger. I mean, he achieved fame and accolades
>and then wrote books that in my opinion are a faint shadow of some of what
>he'd written previously.
>
>(But on the other hand, it's hard to generalize. I don't adore some of his
>earlier stuff, either. Any artist is uneven. The Muse comes and goes. But
>an an established artist can expect everyone to fawn over every effort,
>like Ernie's phonies, while the artist starting out can expect criticism at
>every turn.)
>
Although it depends on what you prefer regarding his earlier compared to his
later works, I think it's important for any artist to have his own
government over what works and what doesn't. Every criticism has its own
kind of truth to it, and if he wants to write for a chosen reader the
criticism that falls inside his own preferences may be more valuable than
the criticism of someone that prefers meta fiction or whatever. That's the
luxury of experience, knowing what criticism can work for you and what works
against you. My saying that Salinger freaked out with his publication of
Hapworth is probably not what he cares to hear. Maybe he just wanted to try
something different, if he wasn't intentionally making a statement.
>>[..]
>>How about Kurt Vonnegut's later works or by a stretch maybe Salinger with
>>Hapworth, so lost in his own iconoclasty that he publishes some esoteric
>>whatever you want to call it. It's my opinion that an author's first book
>>is usually his best, not in craft but in artfullness.
>
>I've thought that about musicians.
Harry Conick Jr. comes to my mind.
>>He was caught by literature. Then he was unbound because the catch was
>>crucifying him.
>
>The breathless question is: but did he jump out of the frying pan and into
>the fire? Sure, writing alone in Cornish gets him away from Ernie's
>problem, but does he get a new problem? Does he have a touchstone like
>Phoebe? Is his writing now irrelevant to the specific struggles and
>language of people today (or the date his stuff gets posthumously
>published)? Art is cathartic for the creator but made better and made
>valuable to others by relevance to those reading it, I think. Or maybe he
>really did improve things for himself and has created a new sort of writing
>or somesuch. I hope he's doing okay. I agree with Antolini that the
>scariest prospect of falling is when you don't know you're falling.
>
>Thanks for the interesting thoughts!
>
You make some really good points, particularly about Phoebe being a
touchstone. As far as I know, Salinger had some excellent editors. As far
as relevance goes, I like to think Salinger's works are timeless. There are
facets that speak of a time frame, but they are secondary to the work. F.
Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck relied heavily on the time frame of
their works, as did many war authors, but Salinger is always a breath of
fresh air. Whether he jumped out of the pan and into the fire remains to be
seen, and he'd be the best judge of that.
Pleasure,
Jordan Chambers
>Suzanne
>
>-
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