Re: Antolini: Life Imprisonment
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Wed, 24 Feb 1999 11:45:12 +1100
Possibly we could regard Buddy as the most unreliable of all unreliable
narrators. Our entire perception of not only Seymour but all the Glass
characters (if we take the implication in S:AI that Buddy rather than
Salinger is the `author' of the Glass related Nine Stories). What if the
testimony on Seymour had been Mrs Fedders, or Muriel's? That would have
made a huge difference in our perception of him. But that asks a very
Barthesian question about the death of the author - if we can't trust Buddy
then we can't trust Salinger and then - who can we trust? In a strange way
Salinger surrenders his own authority as an author by speaking through a
character for whom unreliabilities could come into play.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest
Pierott65 wrote:
> I agree that we can't trust Holden's assessment of Antolini (and I think
we
> should be careful to keep a close eye on his assessments of everything
else,
> for that matter: his unsure footing is one of the reasons he, as an
adolescent
> character, has always ringed/rang/rung so true to so many different
people, I
> think). I just mean that if we say that the ambiguity of Antolini's
actions
> opens the door to the possibility of Salinger examining Seymour as having
a
> "sickness" (pedoph.) we would have to look at Seymour in the same light
we
> view Antolini and I don't think the ambiguity is there, in that sense. I
think
> in terms of running themes in the canon (Seymour as a version of Holden &
vice
> versa) that would color our interpretation of the cliff catching, make it
less
> than the kind of desperate and semi-heroic sentiment it is and that
doesn't
> fit for me. I hope that makes a little sense.
>
> With nothing better to do at 1 in the morning,
> rick