--Boundary_(ID_2AXduONb0i0qSwPEuBc7Jg) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Bernd Wahlbrinck wrote:__ > hey, you can bet quite a pile of money that holden is NOT talking to > a therapist. In the beginning, I accepted the ol' talking to a therapist angle and instructed my students to buy into this point of view which I now think is false for many reasons including the one you share in your post. Salinger's experience with theatre must have made him familiar with all those "stage asides" where the character speaks directly to the audience as if the two were ol' buddy-roos. Who has read this book and not thought, "this guy is speaking right to me" ? That is the phenomena of the novel--we forget Salinger; we forget any thought of a psychologist. It's just me and Holden against the world. We wouldn't feel this intimacy if we really believed that Holden is speaking to some doctor. BTW--I made the trip to New York City. I listened to the ducks quack, but the carousel was closed for the day. Boy, I was there in my mind though--reaching for those gold rings. I danced at a club in the village called Polly Esther's (clever, huh?), but I was thinking about Ernies. I really do need to get a life! m.e. -- M.E. Pierce Dept. of English, SFASU http://TITAN.SFASU.EDU/~f_pierceme/ "Are you a nobody too?" --The Belle of Amherst --Boundary_(ID_2AXduONb0i0qSwPEuBc7Jg) Content-type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
Bernd Wahlbrinck wrote:__
hey, you can bet quite a pile of money that holden is NOT talking to
a therapist.
In the beginning, I accepted the ol' talking to a therapist angle
and instructed my students to buy into this point of view which I now think
is false for many reasons including the one you share in your post.
Salinger's experience with theatre must have made him familiar with all
those "stage asides" where the character speaks directly to the audience
as if the two were ol' buddy-roos.
Who has read this book and not thought, "this guy is speaking right to me" ? That is the phenomena of the novel--we forget Salinger; we forget any thought of a psychologist. It's just me and Holden against the world. We wouldn't feel this intimacy if we really believed that Holden is speaking to some doctor.
BTW--I made the trip to New York City. I listened to the ducks quack, but the carousel was closed for the day. Boy, I was there in my mind though--reaching for those gold rings. I danced at a club in the village called Polly Esther's (clever, huh?), but I was thinking about Ernies. I really do need to get a life!
m.e.
--
M.E. Pierce
Dept. of English, SFASU
http://TITAN.SFASU.EDU/~f_pierceme/
"Are you a nobody too?" --The Belle of Amherst
--Boundary_(ID_2AXduONb0i0qSwPEuBc7Jg)--