Re: JD the genius

WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Mon, 14 Sep 1998 13:22:40 -0600 (MDT)

Kari, hi, I'm one of the college professors on this list and have the luck
to be teaching a "Salinger Seminar" (English 493) with a very talented
group of some of my university's best students.  To be honest, it has
taken me a long time to be able to teach such a course since becoming a
college professor is not easy trick.  However, I am lucky and was tapped
by the folks at the u of southern colorado (in no small part for my
interest in computers) and then after a few years, they let me offer my
salinger seminar...hope this helps.  BTW, I am working on developing a
salinger seminar for students online...

will

ps: yes, I love the bathroom scene in zooey and yes, I sometimes think of
buddy finishing up SAI and teaching...

On Mon, 14 Sep 1998, Lomanno wrote:

> Camille wrote:
> 
> > I guess the best writers are the ones who
> > give the least impression that there's a lot of mechanics going on under
> > the smooth skin of the story. Salinger's a master at this, when I first
> > read TCIR I thought it was so wonderfully random; yet now I know how
> > tightly structured it is in some ways.
> 
> That, to me, is what makes Salinger my favorite author. He writes as if
> he's talking to you personally, telling stories off the top of his head.
> Yet when you read carefully you realize that every sentence, every word,
> every LETTER has been painstakingly and meticulously chosen for a
> certain purpose.
> 
> One of my favorite scenes is in "Zooey" when Mrs. Glass is in the 
> bathroom while Zooey is taking a bath, and every tedious detail of their
> conversation and movement is given. Page after page, the reader is 
> forced to remain in this painful scene, and although on the surface it
> appears to be just a mother and son annoying each other , there is this
> underlying tension that you can't name specifically, but it's definitely
> there. This scene, to me, is one of the most important in the book, and
> Salinger writes it as if it's completely irrelevant. That is the genius
> of JD.
> 
> I've really been enjoying our lively discussions, but it's nice to get
> away from all the theorizing and just enjoy the texts. I have a
> question: I know at least one of the list members is a college professor
> teaching a class on Salinger, and I'm not sure who. Could you tell me
> where you're teaching and how you came to teach a Salinger class? That
> is one of my career aspirations when I graduate (to teach Salinger), but
> there are no such classes in my area right now. I'm wondering how one
> would go about petitioning to get a class like that started.
> 
> --Kari Lomanno (there was nothing "mysterious" about my lack of a
> signature; I just did not yet know the e-mail protocol!)
>