Subject: Decloaking before the Musa ichthys
salemerb@epix.net
Date: Fri May 16 1997 - 22:58:32 GMT
Greetings,
Having lurked and lurched and lunched through 900 messages, I thought
it's time to make my introduction. My name is Mark Johnson.
On to more interesting matters--You. More specifically, the
veritable, nay, nigh venerable, spectrum of humanity assembled onto
this list. You run the gamut and fill the gray between those most
merciless poles. Shy and social; young and not-so-young; clever and
oh-so-clever; gregarious and laconic; more and less. Your observations
and commentary and ruminations are fodder enough for any gristmill.
I shall be pleased to grind along.
High school spared me from Salinger (something about needing fuel for
the boiler). Not exactly banned, mind you, just tactfully overlooked
by the antediluvian English department. CITR becames one of those
must-read-later books, and remained so throughout high school and college
and for the next ten years. I managed to collect all but "Nine
Stories" at library book sales through the years. Finally, CITR came
to the top of the reading list. (Insert drum roll, here...)
I was not very impressed. Until I came to page 28 (I think, as I have
loaned out my copy to an apparently even less interested friend)
about two-thirds down where Holden says, "I'm quite illiterate, but
I read a lot." Click! (Or so my memory leads me to believe, in a
parenthetical fashion.) I was hooked from there and then on. So I
read the rest of Salinger's widely available work. Impressive for
their intimate and confidential rapport, the works teach me much about
the craft of writing. Pity I have yet so much to learn.
Not having read any biography or scholarly critique of Salinger's
life and work, I would ask this plantation school of Musa ichthys the
question of whether or not Salinger had a brother who committed
suicide. I suspect not, but may be in error. The poem "Richard
Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson (included for your viewing
pleasure) reminds me of Seymour Glass.
Richard Cory (E.A. Robinson 1869-1935)
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was alway human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
------1896
Guess this sort of thing has been happening for a while now.
Be seeing you,
Mark
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet Act V, i, 250-253
-
To remove yourself from the bananafish list, send the command:
unsubscribe bananafish
in the body of a message to "Majordomo@mass-usr.com".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Oct 09 2000 - 15:01:33 GMT