the iceberg principle
Scottie Bowman (bowmam@indigo.ie)
Wed, 11 Nov 1998 08:50:11 +0000
We're told Salinger as a young writer was an admirer of Hemingway.
And certainly the Catcher & Esme have something of the tone of the older
man's
colloquially told stories.
But by the time we get to the later stuff with all those dandyish
associations
& qualifications he seems to ignore completely the principle of 'less is
more.'
(To me that 'academical' frown of Zooey's sounds like the kind of thing
one
tosses in for easy effect & later cuts as being altogether too
charmingly glib.)
A writer must go on finding his own voice & be honest to it &, of
course,
one respects him for it. But the reason he loses me by the time we get
into
the Glass menagerie has as much to do with the way he trowels on the
words
as with the Gosh-isn't-this-mystical-&-ineffable philosophising.
Scottie B.