Seymour, a ???
Sean Draine (seandr@Exchange.Microsoft.com)
Thu, 13 May 1999 13:53:41 -0700
I just reread _Seymour: an Introduction_ the other night and am struggling
to make any sense of this rambling, tangled thicket of prose. Sadly, the
most honest reading I can give it is this: It's about an isolated,
middle-aged man with an altogether unhealthy and delusional conviction that
his dead brother is the messiah.
'Unhealthy' seems hardly debatable, given all of the sweating, apologizing,
second-guessing, and general fatique that strangles the book. 'Delusional',
because there is apparently nothing, besides Buddy's pathetic pleading (and
perhaps Salinger's Reputation), to compel us to believe him. Oh sure, there
is some mention of Seymour's poetry, which Buddy clearly holds in very high
regard, but no poem actually makes an appearance anywhere. There is also the
occassional illustrative anecdote, such as when Seymour advise's Buddy that
he'd have more luck with the marbles if he stopped aiming them. Oh, come on,
this is the same advice given by Ben Kanobi when he groaned, "Use the Force,
Luke." Surely, Buddy would not have us read anything profound into the
writings of George Lucas. Or?
To the extent that there are autobiographical strains in this story (and
you'd have to be reading it from 50 feet away to miss them), the whole
tortured effort becomes sadder still.
-Sean