Re: those tiny little things that make it all worthwhile.
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Thu, 17 Sep 1998 18:12:54 +1000
> numerous
> ideas fall into place as i write concerning this object-love of mine
> but i'm interested to see if any one else is interested. if not, never
> mind. if so, do tell, as it is the peculiar sharpness of image i see
> when thinking about salinger that makes me love him, in the end,
> more than most other scribes.
This is something I've described to my playwriting students as
`non-specific specificity' (I used to have a better name for it but I've
forgotten it (: ) I like the way that Salinger constructs a world and then
places his characters in it, rather than the other way round, if you get
what I mean. It's like the stage would still exist if the actors weren't
there. I told my students about this, and also that with tiny details, it
doesn't matter the actual details - it doesn't matter that you haven't
heard of the brand name of the chocolate wrapper that's drifting down your
particular street. The details don't matter - the thing is, people
*recognise the process of recognition.' I think this is why we identify
with Holden Caulfield, no matter that we don't live in New York or know how
`Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' goes.
> i've always enjoyed lengthy
> discussions of theory but i also believe that there's much
> substance in those intangibles that bind an author to a reader. for
> me, it's those tricky, can't-quite-place-the-why moments that make
> salinger who he is. well, what he is, perhaps. as for who he is? like
> lord lucan with a pen . . .
My Dad looks like Lord Lucan. He even had to buy a t-shirt with `I am not
Lord Lucan' written on it (: U saw my first modern picture of Salinger
yesterday. He looks like I imagine Pynchon would (I've never seem Pynchon)
It was in the Vanity Fair article. That thing scared me. I don't know why.
Somehow it's even scarier on the inside of the ivory tower on the outside,
actually knowing that the inside isn't wholly in our collective
imaginations ...
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
THE INVERTED FOREST
www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest