Re: Camille vs. Jim, round Three :)

Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Fri, 11 Sep 1998 22:13:07 -0400

Jim Rovira wrote:
 
 
> Ok.  Let's suppose the writer intended to achieve a specific
> effect--horror, for example.  He wants us to be scared poopless when we
> read his works.  This can be conscious or unconscious, to me it makes no
> difference.  This doesn't mean he actually acheived his intent.  We are
> still left with a text that means what it means and does what it does
> regardless of what the author wanted it to do.
 
I've not been following this thread, even though it's probably my duty
to do so.  By way of atonement then:  remember my crackpot theory about
Salinger wanting readers to think that Seymour is going to shoot Muriel
just before he shoots himself?  If I'm right--and I am--and if readers
don't generally think that Seymour was going to shoot Muriel--and they
don't--then the above point is spectacularly vindicated.  

-- 
Jimmy Delicious    mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu