Subject: Re: Confession
From: Paul Miller (phm@midsouth.rr.com)
Date: Fri Oct 06 2000 - 13:34:48 GMT
Together, they constitute a diptych of damnation of the man.
Granted, one might seek safety in that lit crit theory of a firewall
separating man and work, but I'm not so sure how I'll feel the next time I
pick up a Salinger story.
--Bruce
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I can sympathize with this. I usually am more interested in 9 stories and
Catcher which were for the most part written before his isolation. He is a
bastard as sis Salinger says, but few people are total bastards. Look at the
pictures in M. Salinger's book. Look at the way this father looked with
adoration at her early on.
When as a child she didn't want to get into the cage elevator he didn't
try to convince or compel her, he just told the bell hop we prefer the
stairs. When she needed to get out of a crowd in the park he just swooped
her up on his shoulders and carried her right out of there. In Florida while
eating out he ate a 7 layer chocolate cake with gusto even when he
considered it "poison". You could tell Peggy Salinger appreciated these
things about her father.
As time goes on he becomes worse and worse a person, a poor human being.
Salinger saw some of the worst fighting in the war and was among the first
soldiers in to liberate a concentration camp, he said he could never forget
the smell of burning human flesh. He was hospitalized not long after V E
day. You and I haven't had these experiences so to what extint can we judge?
Yes he is a bastard, but what would he have been like if he had never gone
to war? I don't wish to defend him because many went to war and didn't
become first class assho***. Just some of what has crossed my mind.
Paul
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