Subject: RE: Who wrote Catcher? [Was :Re: Basketball with the Big Boys [w as RE: Words, words, words]
From: Baader, Cecilia (cbaader@casecorp.com)
Date: Wed Jan 26 2000 - 17:56:27 EST
> On Wednesday, January 26, 2000 12:15 PM citycabn
[citycabn@gateway.net]wrote:
> ...(Well, yes:
> if one had read an old issue of Harper's carefully there
> would be a Seymour,
> Webb and Boo Boo. No Franny or Buddy around yet.)
In "Down at the Dinghy," BooBoo says something about "Your Uncle Webb." (I
haven't got the book with me, so I can't quote it verbatim.)
Since all of the other family members appear to have proper names, I've
always felt that she meant Buddy. Webb "Buddy" Glass, as a matter of fact.
He's making an appearance already, way back in 1949, long before he speaks
his own name in _Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters_, published in 1955.
Salinger had a history of creating characters and morphing them through
stories until he had an incarnation that worked. Just look at the Caulfield
family stories. I certainly can't argue with the way that he managed to
shape Holden out of that.
I guess that Updike isn't too far off the mark when he said that Salinger
loves the Glasses more than God himself. If he didn't like what he had done
with them previously, he changed them. Voila. The perfect family.
Everybody is a Glass.
So perhaps an analysis of whether Franny is Franny Glass isn't really as
important as understanding that Salinger made her into Franny Glass later
on. And the characteristics that are changed in the second Franny are
perhaps the more important things to note in her character, for those
changes are most indicative of Salinger's own changing ideals.
Just a thought, anyway.
Regards,
Cecilia.
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