Subject: Alsen's royal pain
From: citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Date: Mon Jan 31 2000 - 19:33:33 EST
I don't think Yogic Philosophy or Advaita Vedanta or Homeopathy is the key
to the Glass Family.
I don't think Seymour rejects everything else (and everyone else) to try to
advance toward enlightenment.
I don't think Seymour switches from one form of yoga to another like so many
brands of vitamins. I even don't think _he_ would assert he was following
any particular form of yoga at any particular time. (The idea that he
married Muriel to advance toward Go! on the Monopoly Board of Enlightenment
really seems a stretch.)
I don't think Buddy wrote Hapworth. (I don't care how many mirrors Buddy
might deploy or how many cigarettes he smokes.) If Alsen's thesis hinges on
this, well, that's just too tortured an interpretation for me.
I don't think Seymour went wrong with his quest and has taken a step
backward.
I don't think we can totally explain or solve or
understand-with-a-nifty-thesis S.'s suicide. (But I recommend rereading the
opening pages of SAI--up to "Oh, this happiness is strong stuff.")
I think the real "culmination" to the Seymour story is not Hapworth (for
that is the beginning: the 7-year-old S., and from whence he progressed),
or the atmospherics in Bananafish (for that is an end-result of the
rehabilitated, German typewriter), but the Introduction itself.
I still endorse what "The author writes" on the dust jacket of RHTRBC & SAI
in '63, : ..."Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my
still-uncompleted series about the Glass family."
I haven't convinced myself. :)
--Bruce
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