I like your reading of Muriel in Bananafish, and the conversation...but I am really curious about how to take the "later" accretion of Buddy As Author. What does this mean so far as our reading of Bananafish? I mean, I read F and Z before I read ANY other Salinger. After F and Z I read Catcher, then Nine Stories. So I had already developed some conception of Who Seymour Was and That He Had Committed Suicide before I read Bananafish. I'm not opposed to, say, importing everything else we know about Muriel into Bananafish. What I like about your reading is that it is consistent with the whole Glass canon while still being fair to the story by itself. But it's the Buddy/author thing I'm still stuck on :) How do we account for the existence of the text if "Buddy" wrote it? How do we read it then? Jim In a message dated 11/29/99 5:57:28 PM Eastern Standard Time, cbaader@my-Deja.com writes: > It's different than what most people believe, I know. And I'm not sure that > I'd have that opinion if I didn't have the rest of the Glass stories, but it' > s the reading that feels most right to me. I guess we could play that game > that came up a few months ago, what if you were reading Bananafish for the > first time? And is it Will who likes to Xerox the APDFB with the last line > blotted out and have his classes make up the last line of the story? What an > excellent way to introduce this to a classroom full of unsuspecting > undergrads. > > > Regards, > Cecilia. > > (And might I mention, all good points, Jim? What fun this is.)