Subject: Re: But if the Franny in "Franny" is not Franny Glass...
From: citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Date: Wed Jan 26 2000 - 18:42:39 EST
Cecilia wrote:
The earlier Franny is much like the Seymour in Bananafish: angry and unwilling to come to terms with the simpletons that seem to surround them. However, the later Franny and later characterizations of Seymour show Buddy's movement towards an acceptance of the world, a release of the anger caused by the death of his brother. Buddy then becomes the God-Knower, the ring-ding enlightened man, the blue-striped unicorn who has been able to achieve some level of satori through living a path completely different from the one that failed Seymour. ("Let your stars come out...")
It's a fascinating book, covering the Glass Stories in a manner that I hadn't seen before. Buddy becomes the main actor in all of the stories, and his the actions of his characters merely symbols for his own advancement. Magnificent.>>
WAIT: Just reading this, am I to infer Alsen feels Seymour fails enlightenment, and Buddy achieves it? That the _real_ blue-striped unicorn is Buddy, not Seymour? As much as I agree that Buddy's spiritual state progresses over the stories (and at the end of SAI he achieves major insights _via writing (meditating) directly on Seymour (his guru))_, I don't buy for a second that Buddy goes beyond, let alone, reaches S's level.
--Bruce
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