Re: Salinger and Nabokov / Flaubert's Parrot -Reply -Reply
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Thu, 03 Sep 1998 17:05:45 +1000
> >Likewise the Glass stories can be seen as a series of jigsaw puzzle
> >pieces whose gaps we must fill - or is it just like this because
Salinger
> >hasn't published the other puzzle pieces? Does Salinger want his
> >works seen
> >as `literary cubism'?
>
> This is great!
> I thought about it in the following way - a multi - piece painting, each
> piece indifferent to, yet owing part of its existance to the others.
> Magnificent in its own right ,but when aggregated, absolutely staggering.
Yes, that is true, but I guess my question is - are the pieces we *don't*
see intentional gaps or simply things that Salinger has locked away in his
safe? It's a bit like mise-en-scene in film - the concept of studying what
a film maker includes or excludes from the movie frame, and the importance
of this to the overall meaning of the film. What Salinger has included is
every bit as important as what he has excluded. But is this intentional or
is it just that we don't have the whole story? Are we missing out on a much
larger picture or is this the only jigsaw pieces there are. One of these
annoying things we'll never know probably - although every source I've
heard has said that a large amount - if not all - of the stuff in that safe
is Glass related. There's no doubt in my mind that it is. But I suppose all
we can ever gain is a larger and more filled out portrait of the Glass
world, sort of like going from a Hopper painting to a Where's Waldo page
(they call him Wally out here by the way. Don't ask me why)
It's almost as if he's retreated from the real world to construct another
of his own, isn't it?
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
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