Re: Truth in paradox

On Mon, Nov 04, 2002 at 10:08:00AM -0800, Kim Johnson wrote:

> there's rather an enjoyable essay about this: craig
> stoltz's 'j.d. salinger's tribute to whit burnett' in
> 'twentieth century literature', v.27, no. 4, winter
> 1981, pp. 325-330.

I regret not having the Stoltz essay, so I don't know if he makes
reference to this:

There is a letter in the Princeton collection from Salinger to Whit
Burnett, in which he makes reference to Martha Foley (Burnett's
wife), as follows. I thought it might amuse those who followed the
in-the-classroom comments about Burnett reading Faulkner to the
class:

        Thank you for writing me. I hope Miss Foley is
        recovering rapidly. You ought to read aloud to her
        "That Evening Sun Go Down". You pulled me out of a
        mood when you read it to the class one night, and I
        had read the story several times.

In his 1940s letters to Burnett -- when he needed the older man --
Salinger is quite adept at playing the part of the eager acolyte,
kissing up to the more successful Burnett, who (at that point)
is one path to success for a beginning writer like Salinger.

That would change sadly by the Sixties, when a Burnett request to
reprint a Salinger story was coldly brushed off by its author, who
by then could afford to be quite aloof -- and he played it to the
hilt, Jerry did.

By that time, Burnett was at the end of his career, virtually an
outcast, and could have used the boost of having Salinger in his
pages. But old Jerry couldn't care less by that point. Burnett
was merely an ancient stepping-stone by then, it appears.

--tim o'connor

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Received on Tue Nov 5 15:00:06 2002