Subject: Re: John Updike
From: Ed Fenning (ed361@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jan 10 2000 - 23:15:39 EST
--- erespess@nji.com wrote:
> >Updike reading Salinger loving the Glass family
> "too much" is really the
> >indicator of the text's successful illusion of love
> in the first
> >place.
To discuss a text's characters in terms of
> their effects on
> >realities is to acknowledge a literary power
Salinger' has completely made his readers
> "understand" the glass family so
> >intimately that the criticsim that follows imagines
> the characters'
> >realities as though they were realities...will
>
> EXACTLY!! This point makes me want to jump up and
> down on my bed yelling "woo-hoo!"
Hey Beth,
*You're right on with that response.*
I scribbled something off-list to Will since I was too
self conscious about it (I brought in another Fisher's
earlier posting about sentimentality and may have
misquoted him/her - sorry) but hell, here's my reply
now: Cheers - Ed
Will,
What you've said, especially your first sentence,
and the following: "Salinger has completely ... as
though they were realities", hits the nail right on
the head. It's what I've wanted to say, except much
simpler and probably without the subtleties, which is
why you're the guy whos teaching literature while I'm
pushing paper in some blankety blank office.
When the author's text creates a "successful
illusion" it is very much like the best acting. That
is why for example, though I was pretty baffled by
"Hapworth," I was thinking, my God, this guy has
pulled off such a completely outrageous personality
depiction, a very, very gifted little boy, erudite and
articulate about what he reads, but still trying on
adult roles that he doesn't quite understand
nonetheless (I've only read it once); and the kid
seems to be pretty manic besides (*my* observation).
Similarly, a few postings back someone spoke of
defining sentimentality as (don't remember the quote
exactly) putting human love for something above God's
love; they then state it was something Seymore had
said. That was Seymore's perception, (and *not*
Salinger's either since he is creating Seymore) and to
speak of sentimentality like that, "imagines
the characters' realities as though they were
realities."
Hope I've made some sense here.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Feb 28 2000 - 08:38:06 EST