Subject: RE: fresh blood (Salinger in movies)
From: Micaela (mbombard@middlebury.edu)
Date: Mon May 13 2002 - 14:56:00 EDT
Jim, You said: "This is a kind of fetishization
of authors, or a misdirection of a religious impulse. Parallel to using
a text or an icon or a mass or a statue as a vehicle through which we
approach God, readers use fiction as a means to approach authors, seeing
them as the repositories of truth and wisdom." I feel like that is the most
accurate description of how so many people fell about Salinger...and it is
rather disillusioning to discover the personality behind the words. I often
feel like I fall into the trap of deifying Salinger...he just seems to lend
himself so well to producing a cult-like following. How true do you think
his wisdom really is? How closely should we hold the words of our most
cherished authors? Is this dangerous? Sometimes I feel very confused about
the whole author/reader relationship and I find myself taking Salinger a
little too much like liturgy. I, of course, do not take his wisdom blindly,
but I do take it quite seriously. Is there a "right" way to engage with a
text? (I know these are big questions, but I just thought I'd throw them
out there.)
-Micaela
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org
[mailto:owner-bananafish@roughdraft.org]On Behalf Of Jim Rovira
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 2:29 PM
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Re: fresh blood (Salinger in movies)
Yep, the works ultimately, are, everything. They're the reason people
are interested in the author to begin with. On the one hand, there's
something sad about people being more interested in gossip column
information than in literary fiction. On the other hand, these works do
indeed come "from" somewhere and someone. It's not unreasonable that
some people want to get to the source. This is a kind of fetishization
of authors, or a misdirection of a religious impulse. Parallel to using
a text or an icon or a mass or a statue as a vehicle through which we
approach God, readers use fiction as a means to approach authors, seeing
them as the repositories of truth and wisdom.
Unfortunate, because in person they often turn out to be a-holes :).
Jim
"D." wrote:
>
> Jim Rovira wrote in the recent past:
>
> >Mmm...there's something on Broadway now that's pretty Salingerian. And
> the movie Field of Dreams has an author character named Terence Mann, who
> in the book upon which the movie was based (Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella)
> was actually supposed to be J.D. Salinger. It's WEIRD reading a
> fictionalized version of a real, living person. It's like we're seeing a
> zombie or a doppleganger or something. WEIRD. I think the movie creates
a
> pretty good Salinger without making him Salinger. Finding Forrester has a
> good Salinger character as well -- I realize these are both film and not
> stage projects, but they're also something I know that's accessible in
> Australia.
>
> I remember reading this and decided this might be, potentially,
> interesting. From the DVD liner notes of Finding Forrester by
screenwriter
> Mike Rich:
>
> I was doing an interview with someone who had done very interesting
> profiles on some of American's greatest authors, and I noticed a trend
> emerge. So many of America's greatest writers, J.D. Salinger or Thomas
> Pynchon, for example, were eccentric, reclusive types. I thought a story
> that showed how someone break through the barrier of isolation and
re-enter
> the world would make a terrific story. It struck me that it would be even
> more interesting if the person who brings the writer out is someone
> young--a teenager, for example--who is also in some way gifted.
>
> In my humble opinion, upon seeing Finding Forrester during its initial
> theater run thought the character brought to my mind not only Salinger and
> Pynchon but William Gaddis and Ralph Ellison. Ellsion mainly because he
> only published one novel during his lifetime, Invisible Man; Gaddis
because
> of his low profile and his alleged habit of filling rooms floors to
> ceilings with books in his residences. Forrester has books shelved and
> piled seemingly everywhere in his apartment. No doubt in my mind,
despite
> the Salinger references used, that Forrester is, not shockingly, a mixture
> of a few writers--including ones I haven't mentioned.
> As for the characters of William Forrester and Terrance Mann, I prefer
> Mann. Forrester, while a very intriguing character, seems too forced.
The
> scene with him stumbling in the Madison Square Garden crowd then cowering
> in a corner of the concourse was the prime example of the forced nature of
> the character. I would find it difficult that any writer, unless
> completely devoid of human contact for years on end, would have difficulty
> navigating a public place such as a sports arena. The notion of his
> reclusiveness is made far too much of an issue in the movie, particularly
> in this movie where writing itself takes a secondary position to it.
> Mann (Salinger wouldn't let the filmmakers use his name in the movie)
is
> a much more flowing character whose desire to stop publishing and withdraw
> is made issue only once, to any degree, in the movie, and that's after Ray
> Kinsella has done a fair amount of research about his career, his works,
> and his political ideas--not just his reclusiveness. Mann's stance,
> however, on privacy seems entirely in keeping with Salinger when he says:
>
> I haven't published a word in 17 years and still I have to endure
> lunatics like you. What do you think would happen if I suddenly came out
> with a new book? They'd bleed me dry.
>
> Yes, having read Shoeless Joe, then watched these two movies, it is an
> odd thing to suddenly have the vision of these writer placed before me in
> marionette-like fashion where the interpretations of their lives and
> ideologies may or may not fall in line with the real person behind the
> characters. This, perhaps, may be the closest any of us will ever come to
> being in the presence of these writers, but, ultimately, I feel it's their
> works that must be focused upon, not alleged (or real) eccentricities
these
> writer may have.
>
> D.
>
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