Salinger
Lomanno (lomanno@ix.netcom.com)
Tue, 10 Nov 1998 14:54:25 -0500
Paul Janse wrote:
> I have never found Salionger's style 'dry', matter-of -fact',
> 'unornamented' or what you would like to call it. ln my opinion he is a
> very careful stylist, something I would not say of Hemingway (as far as I=
>
> know him). Although Salinger's style is not 'baroque' like Nabokov's, it
> has a definite exquisite flavor of its own. I took a completely random
> sample from F&Z, and blindly picked the sentence "Zooey frowned, but
> academically". By whom else could this have been written but Salinger?
>
I agree with you completely. Salinger must have agonized over every word
to the point of obsession. He is certainly a master craftsman, a poet
writing prose. Maybe the words "dry" and "matter-of-fact" didn't really
convey my meaning. I think it's more of a user-friendly style; he paints
such clear pictures in the reader's mind (can't you just SEE Zooey's
"academic frown?") that it's impossible not to feel as if you're part of
the scene.
Changing the subject: A professor of mine is going to teach an "American
Lit: 1945 - present" course next semester, and some fellow students and
I were asking him what authors he planned to include in the class. He
asked for our suggestions, and I immediately blurted out "Salinger!"
Everyone turned and looked at me like I was "one of those Salinger
freaks" as the professor explained to me that Salinger has "been done to
death," and that there's really nothing more to say about him. Is he
right? Because, personally, I've never had the pleasure of "learning" a
Salinger text in a classroom environment.
My only experience with Salinger has been within the comfort of my own
home, and I would really like to hear some truly academic discourse
(like we have here). I'd even like to experiment with subjecting
Salinger texts to some formal literary theories (just for fun). :)
--Kari