Subject: RE: father, dear father, come home with me now ....
From: Will Hochman (Hochman@scsu.ctstateu.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 05 2000 - 00:27:48 GMT
Yes Cecillia, Ms. Margaret Salinger's probs are not as severe as
others--but unlike whiney old Joyce Maynard, Ms. Salinger's
description and analysis are critically exciting since the memoir
does more than recount its author's life with her famous father. I
like the way Ms. Salinger sees problems with J.D. Salinger's female
characters (in a Salinger seminar I taught, one of the best papers I
received also expressed similar concerns with Salinger's way of
seeing women) and I really like the way Ms. Salinger critiques her
father's mix of aesthetics and theology. I should get back to
writing the review but I do want to point out that Ms. Salinger makes
a pretty good case for her father getting caught up in his own values
and not always being a great guy or even a decent father. As she
writes, "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
conscience."
Bananafish, this is not simply the story of living through a
difficult childhood with an unusual father. You will see how
Salinger's reality and his fictive realities blend, you will learn
how to better understand and know J.D. Salinger based on better
biographical insights than those of Hamilton or Alexander, and you
may even enjoy the fact that a strongly female Salinger way of seeing
changes the way we understand the fiction of J.D. Salinger. will
-- Will Hochman Assistant Professor of English Southern Connecticut State University 501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515 - * Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message * UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
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