>I actually feel the same way you do about Catcher and the Glass stories (I
>get a lot more out of the Glass stories). . .just, if you want to judge
>Salinger's influence,
Why do you want to judge his influence? Or any writers for that matter?
It has been said previously, by an English professor no less, that
Salinger is not popular among the aged erudites. Boo Hoo. It would be so
much better if everyone could read and study Hapworth, and enrich their life
experience to no end...
t
>
>Catcher is such an important cultural icon
Hot Dog.
Stop the press. Jimmy has typed a mesaage sans those tacky smiley faces.
Please, if only for a curmudgen such as myself, please cease and desist or I
will be forced to open one of the many threatening email messages I have
recieved and will likely be eradicated from this message board, depriving
you and countless others of my irascible wit and humor.
-John
it's really not a fair
>comparison to say that people aren't doing worthwhile work if they haven't
>written a Catcher. Those types of novels just don't come around often,
>period. Rushdie's _Satanic Verses_ actually offers me more than Catcher
>does. So does Delillo's _Underground_. Or Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_.
>But I'll bet anything someone offering a undergraduate class in Salinger
>would get quite a few more registrations than someone offering a class in
>Pynchon or Delillo (or both) -- and that most of the students in it would
>have already read at least one thing by the author.
>
>Jim
>
>Kim Johnson wrote:
>
> > --- James Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > What you did say in your previous post was that
> > > those programs were a complete waste of time.
> > > That's mistaken. If all you meant was that they're
> > > not for everyone, that's an odd way of saying it --
> > > it sounded like you meant they weren't for anyone.
> >
> > in reading my last post i don't see that i said it was
> > a 'complete waste of time.' the post was an off the
> > cuff wondering if the mfa programs weren't all that
> > they were cracked up to be. that, given the thousands
> > of graduates, they hadn't produced someone on the
> > level of a salinger. and i mention the question of
> > temperment of the writer as a possible determining
> > factor on how the mfa might affect him. but i'm not
> > fool enough to say that one wouldn't get anything out
> > of such a program. that would be absurd. (not that
> > i've been in such a program...so you can discount all
> > i've said...) :)
> >
> > > I think you also need to broaden your conception of
> > > accomplishment if you're only willing to see Raymond
> > > Carver and Flannery O'Connor from the lists below as
> > > being "accomplished." It boasts of Pulitzer and, I
> > > think, Nobel prize winners -- honors I don't think
> > > Salinger ever won.
> >
> > no, i didn't say that no one else was 'accomplished.'
> > you asked me to identify those that were as
> > accomplished as salinger. and i stick by my reply
> > that, despite the 'awards', the only two writers from
> > your list on salinger's level are o'connor and carver.
> > but i'm not saying the others haven't accomplished
> > anything. they're successful, creative writers with
> > wonderful vitaes, but not at the level of salinger for
> > my book-buying money.
> >
> >
> > > I'm not sure that Nine Stories has much historic
> > > significance outside the fact that it was written by
> > > Salinger. While Catcher spawn imitators, I don't
> > > think the stories did. I still think For Esme and
> > > Pretty Mouth are the best things Salinger ever wrote
> > > -- better than Catcher, even. You don't see
> > > Salinger anthologized much at all these days,
> > > though. That may be Salinger's decision, and if
> > > that's the case, he's shooting himself in the foot.
> > > If all he wants to be remembered for is Catcher,
> > > then that's the quickest way to do it....
> > >
> >
> > ben yagoda, in his history of 'the new yorker' gives a
> > fairly good sense of the excitement salinger caused in
> > the late 40s, early 50s with his stories. but to show
> > you how flawed my sense of literary worth is, i think
> > the glass stories are better, more important, that
> > 'the catcher.'
> >
> > kim
> >
> > __________________________________________________
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Received on Tue Sep 3 19:42:51 2002
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