Re: intelligence of the author vs. intelligence of the characters

From: Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu>
Date: Tue Sep 03 2002 - 22:03:12 EDT

John, please, pull your head out of your ass just long enough to consider the
possibility that writing something that effects generation after generation
after generation of teenagers -- pretty much unabated -- is a significant
accomplishment.

Jim

John Gedsudski wrote:

> >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 22:03:19 2002

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