Subject: Re: It's War!
From: Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Date: Sat Sep 23 2000 - 11:50:48 GMT
I wrote:
[disparaging things about Salinger's stories?]
eryk salvaggio wrote:
> Does anyone on this list like JD Salingers stories?
I like them, eryk. Ever since I was ten. But to be honest, I liked
them only in stages, and when I had passed into a new stage, the appeal
of the past stage became a bit of a problem, the way one's affection for
Legos ceased to make sense amidst one's enthusiasm for _The Keep on the
Border_ and _The DM's Handbook_.
When I was nearly eleven, post-_Catcher_ but pre-Glass, I went to the B.
Dalton's in the mall and I bought, with a little help from my mother,
_Franny and Zooey_. The grace that accompanied me as I strode from car
to living room sank into bewilderment and then incredulity as my
father's predicitons came true: this book was nothing like _Catcher_.
It wasn't even funny. And I didn't even finish it. I must have read
four pages before I began checking, re-checking and triple-checking the
spine to confirm the author's--the impostor's--name: yes, "Salinger,"
it said, and I supposed it was only just like Fortune and her hateful
sisters to show me something beautiful and then destroy it right in
front of me.
A couple of years later, maybe three, _Catcher_ took on a different
significance for me, and at the same time, I began to grow into _F&Z_,
which I had picked up again and which suddenly offered plenty of very
clever moments. By 18, I was indignant whenever anybody failed to join
me in convulsive adoration for Buddy Glass, but Holden was quickly
becoming passe. To have read only _Catcher_ was to have missed the
point. Sure it was a good novel, but the real Member would immediately
recognize the singular genius, the delicate emotional-intellectual
predicament, of the Glass family. The same "story" in some respects,
but while I had previously known _Catcher_ was written *just for me*, I
now realized that it was actually "Zooey" and "Roofbeam" that were
written just for me.
The question is, Is this progression cicular, or linear? Will there
shortly be a return to regard for _Catcher_, to be followed in five
years by a rediscovery of the Glassworks? Or is it the end of the line
for me? Must I be content with the slightly less pathological emotions
in my few favorites from the _Nine_, which now seem to me Salinger's
greatest achievements, his best-balanced, most skillfully crafted
little bars of gold? "DD Smith" and "The Lauging Man" don't envelope
themselves in their own absurdity, the way Glass children tend to. But
as I float further and further from Truth out here in the cold academic
sea (excuse me, "see"), will I eventually lose sight even of the
Chief?
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