Oh man, oh man, oh man. .. Christ! I don't believe I read what follows my message. ....................Holier than thou - my ass. Condescending, concieted...Writers - my ass. Open you eyes to what you read. -jared -----Original Message----- From: Tim O'Connor <tim@roughdraft.org> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu <bananafish@lists.nyu.edu> Date: Sunday, November 28, 1999 8:22 AM Subject: Re:Yawn. >At 9:27 AM +0000 on 11/28/1999, Scottie wrote: > >> Illiteracy inevitably dries up the number of ideas available >> for their expression. > ><INSERT YIDDISH ACCENT> > >For this we have this man on hand! > ><STOP ACCENT> > >This line made me wet my pants. > >> Real writers, people like you & me (& ... I need not name >> them, they will recognise themselves) should welcome >> these arid stretches. For they illustrate all too vividly >> what a dangerous diversion any listserve can be. Just as >> the saint welcomes poverty & adversity so should >> we welcome anything that drives us away from worldly >> temptations & back into the galley that brings us finally >> to our one true home. > >I greatly agree; they also mirror the writer's creative life: full of >ups and downs, fallow periods, times of red-hot composition, fumbling >with ideas, and so on. > >I confess that I have been only skimming things recently, but perhaps >-- just perhaps -- someone might have a topic of s-u-b-s-t-a-n-c-e >into the arena. Scottie said it well in a section I did not quote: >there's not a huge body of work on which to comment, unless we want >to be alarmingly esoteric (like discussing Salinger's use of iTALics, >or of the semi-colon).... > >I'd like to think that the stream will replenish itself from >upstream, as new people join. Please, new people, do jump in. >Sometimes people get offended here about comments about what they >say, but the best thing to do is to approach it as any sane and >humble student or writer accepts comments, and consider them >constructive criticism. So, if you offer an idea and someone shoots >at it, maybe your idea is faulty. Or rich for discussion. But we >won't know unless we try. > >Here is one idea: Which of the stories in Nine Stories comes closest >to your life experience, and why? > >I'll throw out my answer right now: I have had such moments of >despair as Seymour in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," and have been >on that beach, literally (though without any touch of innocence as >Sybil to tether me to the ground), and at the lowest ebb, possibly >would have pulled a trigger if I had had one to pull. (Lucky for me, >I swore off handguns years ago.) > >I say that the cold lack of inner detail toward the end of the story, >compared to the richer narrative that preceded it, where we see >Muriel in exquisitely unflattering detail, is parallel to the mental >state of the man in the story who wakes his wife up by blowing out >his brains in their hotel room. > >In fact, that gunshot-cry from Seymour is very possibly his own >answer to the koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" > >Now, there's something at least on topic, and I'm genuinely >interested in hearing what people think. Hey, if we get some >responses, we can offer the real answer to the koan. > >--tim o'connor