Subject: Re: favorite first Salinger lines (and why)
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Thu May 30 2002 - 14:22:05 EDT
Arch, arch, arch. Oh God.
Too many, oh-so-droll, self-indulgent words,
Will.
Does he really mean: '... my old fair-weather friend
the general reader...'
A fair-weather friend is normally used in an insulting way:
someone who will stick with you - but only through the easy
passages of life.
And what about: '... deeply contemporary confidant ...'
DEEPLY contemporary? What the fuck is that meant
to mean? Profoundly fashionable as opposed to
superficially archaic?
Then we have: '...least fundamentally bumptious public
craftsman I've ever personally known ...'
A public craftsman conjures up the village blacksmith,
maybe, or one of those Murano glassblowers laid on
by the Venetian Tourist Board.
Did anyone ever say to you: 'You know, fundamentally,
he's bumptious.'? Bumptiousness doesn't require
unearthing - it proclaims itself from the battlements.
I thought 'personally' known to me was something
one only ever read in character references written
by semiliterate cops or priests.
As darling Truman remarked: that's not writing, that's
typing.
Scottie B.
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Fri Sep 27 2002 - 17:14:13 EDT