Re: Seymour: A Continuation

Thor Cameron (my_colours@hotmail.com)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 15:16:02 -0700 (PDT) 

Instant Karma's gonna get you/
Hit you right between the eyes
John Lennon
>
>
>I don't think S. committed suicide because his carnality overcame him.
>Carnality, like his  Hapworth problem of grappling with and taming written
>English, were things to be faced, if you will.  He needs to get *to* his
>bull's -eye poet's language (achieved circa 16, 17).  I don't thing S.  was
>in the thralls of carnality later in life.  Remember, Mrs. Fedder wonders
>why he hasn't yet seduced Muriel.
>
>
>
> >However, the following passage made me think of another possibility:
> >
> >`Considering my absurd age, the situation has its humourous side, to be
> >sure, but merely in simple retrospect, I regret to say'.
> >
> >What a weird connotation this passage has. That Seymour knows what he 
>will
> >be thinking in retrospect; that he seems to so easily step outside 
>himself.
> >It occured to me: what if this was reached by a simpler route? That is,
> >that this letter is being written by a Seymour who knows what happened in
> >retrospect?
>
>Seymour knows some of what will happen in the *future*.  Via his glimpses, 
>I
>think he calls them.  Like the important party, mature Buddy writing story,
>and his (S.'s) not living much past c. 30.
>
>
> > I have always
> >wondered exactly why Buddy chose this particular letter to `tell' to us -
> >whether he is just a finicky completist or whether it represents some
> >crucial awakening of something in his psyche. I wonder if Hapworht is 
>not,
> >in fact, Seymour's very oblique suicide note? In some ways it's certainly 
>a
> >lot nicer way of explaining away Seymour's rather absurd prescience.
>
>The prescience seems absurd to the West, not, I think, to those religious
>types in the East.
>
>
> >Off this topic, and backtracking a bit, something else occured to me. We
> >all know that Buddy is a type of Salinger - that is his biography confers
> >with Salinger's to a certain point and then diverges (in the fact that
> >Buddy is a lecturer at a university). Could D.B. Caulfield be Salinger's
> >similar Hitchcockian entree into Catcher? Consider: Like JD, DB is 
>referred
> >to by his initials. JDS was at that point famous for an enigmatic story
> >with `fish' in the title. And most obviously, JDS was a short story 
>writer
> >- who at one point had also highly considered `prostituting' himself to 
>the
> >highly lucrative film industry, which is the point where, like with 
>Buddy,
> >JDS seems to be considering an alternative version of himself. Just a
> >thought, anyway. Combine this with the fact that one of the early
> >unpublished Holden Caulfield stories is apparently (drumroll) .... a 
>letter
> >home from Holden while he is at summer camp!
>
>Yes, very good, totally agree!
>
>And a few addenda:
>
>Jim,
>I personally don't think JDS painted himself into a corner.  Think the
>critics, etc. alight on S.'s suicide and tried to beat JDS over the head
>with it along the lines of how can S. be so great if he committed suicide.
>To my  mind, JDS/Buddy tells us why S. committed suicide in SAI.  The 
>entire
>prelude is about this.  And ends with the section re the cororner's report,
>whether it is consumption, loneliness or suicide:
>
>"isn't it plain how the true artist-seer actually dies?  I say (and
>everything that follows in these pages all too possibly stands or falls on
>my being at least *nearly* right)--I say that the true  artist-seer, the
>heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death 
>by
>his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human
>conscience."
>
>Mike,
>I think it was Ed F. who brought up the Fugs in response to my reference to
>Buddy's recommendation of using a Blake lyric to help with pain.  Congrats
>on finishing the short story!
>
>Camille,
>Great Gertrude Stein quote.
>
>
>--Bruce
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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