Re: gary lane, 'the duino elegies', death haiku

jeez, Kim, you remember the stories in such detail I don't think I can
respond fairly until I've read them again...

Pretty interesting discussion, though. If you see a difference between
Salinger's use of a poem and your reading of a poem -- does that mean that
Salinger reads the poem differently than you, or is he engaging in a
deliberate distortion of the poem to say something about Buddy or Seymour?
Or did he just misremember?

Jim

Kim Johnson wrote:

> well, i was probably just hedging my bet with
> 'subconscious'. it might have been much more. though
> buddy lumps the death poem in with that fey lamb-chop
> division of truth tale about 2 boyfriends: dorothy and
> bobby. and then goes on to talk of seymour's
> insistence that we must unlearn the differences
> between things. but to me the poem points in a
> different direction from that.
>
> and as gary lane says in his article, the fourth elegy
> ends with the proximity of the child with death, which
> links the poem even moreso. (lane does not mention
> the death haiku in his exegesis of the story.) the
> haiku poem merits a lot of attention, i think, since
> it is the only fact that salinger adds to the events
> of 'a perfect day'. but i readily admit i couldn't
> explain in a coherent manner what the poem 'means'.
>
> i do think salinger's love of poetry is crucial to an
> understanding of his work. over and over again he
> injects praise for poetry and poets: from that simple
> blake lyric in 'raise high' once providing physical
> medicinal help to buddy to seymour's mentioning of the
> current of poetry that runs through all things.
> and rilke seems to be rather a central poet for
> salinger.
>
> kim
> --- Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
> > um, excuse me, Kim, but what are you doing talking
> > about Salinger Here?
> >
> > Seriously, that's pretty interesting. I don't think
> > it necessarily had to
> > be a subconscious borrowing on Salinger's part,
> > though, do you?
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > Kim Johnson wrote:
> >
> > > i recently read an interesting essay by gary lane
> > > about 'a perfect day for bananafish'. in it he
> > > submits that the book of german poems seymour sent
> > > muriel is 'the duino elegies'. this seems right
> > to
> > > me. (notice that salinger nowhere refers to a
> > german
> > > poet; in fact rilke was born in prague, then part
> > of
> > > the austro-hungarian empire. as for the question
> > of
> > > whether it could be some other 20th century poet
> > > writing in german prior to 1948, one would be hard
> > > pressed to nominate someone else. besides, rilke
> > > receives mention in 'the stranger', 'the inverted
> > > forest', and, most importantly, for this post, in
> > > 'franny'.) gary lane attempts to illuminate parts
> > of
> > > 'bananafish' using the 'elegies' as a torchlight.
> > i'm
> > > not sure i was convinced that they provide the key
> > to
> > > the enigmas of the story. but it was welcoming to
> > see
> > > someone attempt to utilize the book in question
> > which
> > > was obviously on seymour's mind as they drove
> > down to
> > > florida.
> > >
> > > i referred to 'franny' above. the thing that
> > struck
> > > me is the thought that salinger himself would have
> > > re-read 'franny' before writing 'zooey'. (there
> > had
> > > been a hiatus of 2 years between stories, with
> > 'raise
> > > high' inbetween.) in 'franny' there is a direct
> > > reference to the fourth duino elegy. in 'zooey'
> > > salinger adds one new piece of information
> > regarding
> > > seymour's suicide. he says that seymour wrote a
> > haiku
> > > on the blotter of the hotel desk, in japanese. he
> > > translates it as 'the little girl on the plane/who
> > > turned her doll's head around/to look at me'. this
> > > elegy (which gary lane also refers to), is often
> > > called the doll elegy in rilke criticism. in the
> > elegy
> > > there is some dense symbolism which critics fight
> > > over. but the interesting thing to note is that
> > in a
> > > crucial passage rilke writes: 'when i feel like
> > it, to
> > > wait before the puppet stage,--no, rather/gaze so
> > > intensely on it that at last,/to upweigh my gaze,
> > an
> > > angel has to come,/and play a part there,
> > snatching up
> > > the husks./angel and doll! then there's at last a
> > > play./then there unites what we continually/part
> > by
> > > our being there.' my creaky post merely wants to
> > > suggest that salinger subconsiously remembered the
> > > fourth elegy when he wrote seymour's death poem.
> > that
> > > the poem's setting in a plane could denote the
> > angelic
> > > realm, with the little girl standing in for the
> > angel.
> > > angel and doll are united, and allows: 'then at
> > > last/can spring from our own turning years the
> > > cycle/of the whole event. over and above
> > us/there's
> > > then the angel playing.'
> > >
> > > i don't think the suicide can be explained by the
> > > poem, but i do find it gives thought that salinger
> > > added it after the fact.
> > >
> > > kim
> > >
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Received on Wed Sep 25 14:48:34 2002