Subject: Re: Who wrote Catcher? [Was :Re: Basketball with the Big Boys [was RE: Words, words, words]
From: citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Date: Wed Jan 26 2000 - 13:14:52 EST
My admittedly rather lame post--Who wrote Catcher--really was directed at
the discussion of who wrote _Franny_ and is Franny _the_ Franny Glass. (See
below for some of the original posts.)
If in late January of 1955, one picked up a copy of The New Yorker and read
_Franny_, I venture one might think Franny was some cousin of Teddy McArdle.
JDS had not published in The New Yorker since _Teddy_, Franny is engrossed
with religious matters, she doesn't have the surname of Glass, and, at that
time, a reader would never have heard of the Glass _family_. (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.) Of course, from our
vantage point, we can look back and well, have fun. Obviously JDS in his
dust jacket to the book publication of the two stories, wants us to accept
that Franny is F.G., _was_ F.G., from "Though brilliantly sunny, Saturday
morning was overcoat weather again...," on, for he states _there_ "Both
stories [F. & Z.] are early, critical entries in a narrative series I'm
doing about a family of settlers in twentieth-century New York." But since
it was in RHTRBC that Buddy formally introduces The Family, a good ten
months after the publication of _Franny_, I mused in another post yesterday
about the _possibility_ that the moment of creative Eureka!--"ah, of course:
the Glass _Family_: I've got Seymour, Boo Boo, a mention of a Webb, and
let's include Franny"--might have occurred in spring/summer of '55. But
yes, he might have had the whole thing in mind back in late '47 when writing
on that unbalanced German typewriter APDFB. I think we don't know; but for
our literary parlour/pixel game, one hopes some JDS letter or documentation
eventually turns up that lays this to rest (and when he _really_ first
curled up with a tome on Advaita Vedanta). (Then again, that would ruin all
the fun!)
I find it interesting that JDS goes to the trouble of giving Buddy, so to
speak, his royalties for stories resembling APDFB and _Teddy_ and, here is
where my Catcher post comes in, even a novel that one can infer is _The
Catcher_--but makes no mention of _Franny_. (Even at the outset of _Zooey_,
when Buddy tells us how he wrote that story, there is no glance back to a
story _Franny_.) If we are to venture "authorship" of _F_ to Buddy, and
seek Buddyisms there [see below post of Tim], on our next reading of
Catcher, [given Buddy's declaration re such a novel in S:AI], should we
look for Buddyisms _there_ too? (Looking back, one begins to wonder if JDS
wishes he had, from that very first published sentence in 1940: "About
eleven o'clock, Lucille Henderson, observing that her party was soaring at
the proper height, and just having been smiled at by Jack Delroy, forced
herself to glance over in the direction of Edna Phillips, who since eight
o'clock had been sitting in the big red chair, smoking cigarettes and
yodeling hellos and wearing a very bright eye which young men were not
bothering to catch.", given that "by" line, and all subsequent "by" lines,
to one Buddy Glass, and avoided all that has ensued.)
It would be interesting to dissect the prose style of the two hardback dust
jackets where "the author writes:" and compare and contrast it with Buddy's.
Any takers?
This is getting out of control (if it ever was in control), so I'll just
send it off with a sandwich and thermos. :)
--Bruce
-----Original Message-----
From: citycabn <citycabn@gateway.net>
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 3:29 PM
Subject: Who wrote Catcher? [Was :Re: Basketball with the Big Boys [was RE:
Words, words, words]
>Who wrote _The Catcher in the Rye_?
>
>"Some people--not close friends--have asked me whether a lot of Seymour
>didn't go into the young leading character of the one novel I've
published."
>
>I'm getting confused.
>
>--Bruce
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tim O'Connor <oconnort@nyu.edu>
>To: bananafish@roughdraft.org <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
>Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 12:28 PM
>Subject: Re: Basketball with the Big Boys [was RE: Words, words, words]
>
>
>>On Tue, Jan 25, 2000 at 03:16:32PM -0500, erespess@nji.com wrote:
>>
>>> >Do we know from Salinger's other fiction that Buddy was supposed to be
>the
>>> >author of F and Z?
>>>
>>> I forgot to say that although I do believe that Franny of Franny is
>>> Franny Glass, I do not believe that it's author is intended to be
>>> Buddy. There is not nearly enough butting in with personal views as
>>> there is when Buddy produces his prose home movies.
>>
>>I don't know ... I think it's there but more subtle -- especially in the
>>opening scene, where the narrator acidly portrays the academic "boys"
>>discussing issues that the non-matriculating world had been bungling.
>>(That is a paraphrase.) Even the line that describes how each boy, upon
>>the arrival of the train, manages to give the impression of having at
>>least three lit cigarettes in each hand sounds like a classic Buddyism.
>>
>>There are definitely no Buddy HEADS popping up, but there is a subtle
>>tone in much of the narrative that at least allows you to infer that old
>>Buddy is at it again, this time, like Holden, traveling incognito.
>>
>>--tim
>>-
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