further revelations

Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Fri, 11 Sep 1998 08:31:07 +0000

	I suspect compulsiveness is a personality trait of most writers, 
	not just Salinger.  A real writer can hardly ever stop.  And we 
	already know about that room-sized safe filling up with paper. 
	But one obvious explanation for his refusal to publish is never 
	addressed on this list: that the stuff may be - to his mind - simply 
	not good enough.  And he could be right.

	For me, an obvious parallel is Hemingway.  How vividly I remember 
	the years passing as we all waited for the one that was promised 
	after For Whom the Bell Tolls - the long-presaged `Big One', the one 
	that was going to express some final truths about `the land & 
	the sea & the air....'   

	Some of us began to suspect he was reluctant to go out into 
	the really deep water ever again.  And why not ?  He'd already done 
	his share.  

	But eventually arrived Across the River & into the Trees - a parody 
	of himself that only we, his acolytes, enjoyed.  And The Old Man & 
	the Sea - a contrived yarn sufficiently respectable to win the Nobel 
	but now recognised as a symbol-sunk lead weight.  After his suicide, 
	the remaining vast load of unpublished material was examined, 
	pruned, slapped about, rejigged & released to an embarassed public 
	by his family & hangers-on.  

	Three tons of junk.

	Isn't possible that Salinger - with the same insight - wants to 
	avoid the same fate ?

	Scottie B.