Re: 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature: Gunter Grass
William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Thu, 14 Oct 1999 21:19:24 -0400 (EDT)
In the antioch review Gordon Lish wrote "A Fool for Salinger" and said "In
fact, I wrote the story 'For Jerome--with love and kisses" out of the
model of what I dinot want to know about fathers and their children (is is
different for mothers?), turning myslef into my own father and (back to
'For Esme--With Love and Squalor' again) inot Salinger's father who has
ever been stumped by the nature of what he ahs wrought."
can someone post the citation of "For Jerome" (I want to hit up my
interlibrary loan!) will
On Thu, 14 Oct 1999, citycabn wrote:
>
> Cecilia wrote:
>
>
> >What an odd coincidence...
> >
> >Not many days after reading your post, Bruce, my mother, who likes to buy
> books for me that are labeled "Literature," handed me the 1984 O. Henry
> Short Story Awards compilation, containing, you guessed it, "To Jerome..."
> >
> >What an excellent story. I laughed out loud more than once.
>
> citycabn had written after reading G. Grass had won the Nobel Prize:
>
> >>Damn, Gordon Lish is proved right once again!
> >>
> >>In his longish short story, titled "For Jerome, with Love and Kisses,"
> >>written in the supposed voice of Sol Salinger to his son, Sol needles
> Jerome
> >>about his abandonment of the perfectly good names Jerome David for the
> >>initials JD. Sol says something along the lines of: "What *is* a JD?
> How
> >>do you expect the King of Sweden to give the Nobel Prize to a JD; it's not
> >>even a real name."
>
>
> How wonderful to have a mother who buys one books labeled "Literature".
> Somehow it has a Salingeresque ring to it!
>
> Anyone else ever read "For Jerome"? Any thoughts? Or, for that matter, the
> Esme parody by Gordon Lish, "For Rupert..."?
>
> --Bruce
>