Re: Seymour, a ???
Thor Cameron (my_colours@hotmail.com)
Thu, 13 May 1999 23:50:50 -0700 (PDT)
After my brother died, the following years turned this depressed
teenager-turned-suicide into a legend-cum-saint. It happens. For some
people, it IS healthy.
Thor
>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
>
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