Subject: Re: Introduction (revised)
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 08 2001 - 09:28:07 GMT
On Mon, Oct 08, 2001 at 05:34:13AM -0500, Paul Miller wrote:
> Speaking of or writing of which, has anyone been watching the HBO series
> Band of Brothers? This realistic WW2 series gives a partial glimpse into
> the hell Salinger must have endured in all those battles in Europe. You know
> despite Margret Salingers book I just can't criticise the man when I think
> of the things he went through to help liberate Europe.
I think of JDS when I see that show (and did when I saw "Saving
Private Ryan"), and imagine him (and the narrator of Esme) going
through that hell-on-earth. I figure -- to the extent that these
cinematic recreations can make things seem real to those of us who
were not there -- that if this shaped who he became, it explains a
lot about why his style of writing changed after the war.
It reminds me of stories of him sitting in a trance with his
typewriter while in Europe. Not that he typed during *battle*, but
that he managed to lose himself in typing or writing during down
times.
> His daughter's book
> struck me as very subjective anyway, after all his son doesn't see
> him that way at all.
I suspect his daughter has her own problems (the book seemed to be
the product of a person grappling for her own psychic footing, though
certainly her father comes across as callous in his own way, in, for
example, the passage when she was sick and needed financial help, and
he responded by sending her some Christian Science tracts), and "Dream
Catcher" cannot be read as an objective account -- at least, I think not.
As for his son, who knows? Maybe there's a different dynamic between
father and son. Or his son sees things in a more optimistic manner.
It's hard to know from the outside what is going on inside a family,
especially when that family is as unusual as the Salingers must be.
--tim
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