Re: Salinger and Nabokov / Flaubert's Parrot -Reply -Reply
Thor Cameron (my_colours@hotmail.com)
Thu, 03 Sep 1998 09:40:38 -0700 (PDT)
>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.
(As I sit here staring at Picasso's rendering of the ambiguously shaped
"Nude Woman" in my office)
Dan
Ok, I don't mean to be iconoclastic here, but let's look at two things:
First, isn't it possible that you're giving Salinger WAY too much
credit?
Secondly, if his work IS a jigsaw puzzle, then ultimately that is true
for all writers. Kurt Vonnegut's body of work is a monument for me.
Each piece, each story, each novel makes me appreciate the others all
the more. Is he some kind of literary super-genius? No, it's just that
all of the work comes from the same man. Therefore, the more I read,
the better handle I have on his imagination and how his mind works.
Likewise, the jigsaw puzzle of Salinger's work is most likely not
planned, but a natural pheneomenon created with every prolific writer.
Just a thought.
Thor
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