ramblings and a free quote...
Lagusta Pauline Yearwood (ly001f@uhura.cc.rochester.edu)
Wed, 24 Sep 1997 23:27:03 -0400 (EDT)
hey fishers,
i was just looking back through my old journal, and i found all these
jds quotes from when i first got into him and was so excited that i was
copying everything into my journal because it all seemed like, as sylvia
plath, said "a voice speaking straight out of my bones." so anyway, i
found this:
"through we've talked and talked and talked,
we've all agreed not to say a word."
i don't know what book it's from (it is a book, i'm pretty sure), but i
hadn't read it in a while and the perfect trueness of it struck me so hard
i just sat there for a minute, not doing anything but looking at the words
on the page.
and i was thinking: that's exactly what salinger is for me, that's what he
does: he says it. or he shows it, which is probably better. but there's
not that denial that something, that IT, that unnamable thing that drove
seymour to suicide on the beach and holden to the pond in central park,
exists.
that's society. there's this THING and we talk about everything but it,
there's this tacit understanding that it is not to be discussed. what is
it? it hurts us, it saddens the best of us the most.
i go to this white middle class GAP-obsessed college, and it's rush time.
so i'm thinking about IT, all the stuff that none of the sororities or
frats or anyone, even the kids wearing black and writing poetry and the
bleeding-heart english teachers can explain. it's there, it's oppresive,
it's tragic. and salinger shows it to me, holds it up in front of my eyes,
laughs at the obsurdity of it with me, lets me cry about it, and,
ultimately, makes me feel better about it.
so, well, that's it. back to louise gluck and carolyn forche and women
poets homework...
lagusta