(Fwd) Re: Seymour's Suicide

randy royal (randyr@mailhub.jaxnet.com)
Tue, 07 Oct 1997 20:41:19 +0000 

kristen: this is the original message of that famous free critique 
thing (i knew i didn't save all of those old messages for nothing!) i 
did not forward the original message before now, someone else copied 
it and i made a commentary on it while snipping portions of that. 
enough brevity, here is the original for Those Who Care. sorry for 
the inconveince. randy

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:32:37 -0400 (EDT)
From:          LennyBruc@aol.com
Subject:       Re: Seymour's Suicide
To:            bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
Reply-to:      bananafish@lists.nyu.edu

I think some of you may be looking too hard for the meaning of Seymour, or at
least looking in the wrong place.

Salinger has told the same story at least three times. Catcher, Bananafish
and the actual story Seymour tells about the fish are really the same story.
There might be more, Like Esme, but I haven't thought about it a lot.

The point: Most people are able to see that the world isn't really to be
dealt with. They are either not able to see that there is so much bad, bad
stuff (phony, cruel, illogical ..etc.) out there, or they can see it but they
realize that if you want to be happy and comfortable you better find a way to
ignore it and work around it. But, there are always some people, or fish, who
can't manage that. They see-more. They have to take it all in, or swallow so
many banana's, that they can't let it go. People like that are in for a fall.
You can't live that way. Holden went crazy. The Fish and Seymour died. And
Salinger ended up a hermit. It's not an option, and you shouldn't look at
Seymour's death as a suicide. It's not like Seymour could have chose to
see-less. Holden's teacher tried to warn Holden of "the fall, Seymour tried
to warn the little girl at the beach,  and I suppose Salinger was trying to
warn us too with Bananafish.

I don't think you're supposed to look at Muriel as a antagonist. She was just
there to provide contrast between people like Seymour and everyone else.