Re: ZOOEYCAM
blah b b blah (jrovira@juno.com)
Mon, 01 Mar 1999 18:21:57 -0500 (EST)
I think we need to make sure our facts are straight first, and then
there's a theoretical side to this that it may be interesting to address.
Will said that he didn't study Zen, he studied vendata Hinduism (the
reincarnation allusions in Teddy do sound more hindu than buddhist).
But, of course, judging from Seymour's reading list I'm sure buddhist
texts were on it :). However, he was certainly a devotee of some eastern
religion, and studied with a particular teacher. Was this a Hindu or Zen
teacher?
And you refer to the "ramakrishna" center -- is this Zen or Hindu?
What's really interesting to me is that "detachment" is what's being
preached in "Zooey," and it's the type of detachment extolled in the
Bhagavad Gita (which was quoted in Zooey, interestingly). This is a
hindu document, so far as I can tell. In this, Krishna is teaching
Arjuna about detachment, among other things, being able to "act without
desire."
Could this have been the focus of study in the ramakrishna center?
Next, Will dated Salinger's study with this particular teacher in 1948.
Portions of Catcher were published in 1945 and 1946, with the entire
novel published in 1951. So, eh, the question is, when did Salinger
study **Zen**, in particular?
See, the text seems to be to be pretty tightly wound. It has an
appearance of chaos at times because it's a first person account in a
teenage boy's voice. But the narrative moves from point A to point B
quite nicely. I don't really see Catcher as being non-linear or
non-logical. It's just not a third person narrative.
>> The question to ask would be, "If I had no knowledge of
>> Zen principles, would I be able to deduce them from the text?" I
>think
>> the answer is a Big yes with Teddy -- it's almost didactic in
>nature,
>> virtually Zen propoganda -- and a no with Catcher.
>
>Well, you could also work the other way too. You could say `how much
>does
>this text make sense without the knowledge of Zen?'. Many things in
>Catcher
>made a lot more sense when I looked on it from the Zen angle - it
>enriched
>it for me but I guess it wasn't really essential, just handy. Whole
>chunks
>of Shakespeare are lost to us because we have lost the topical
>references
>in time but he still does OK out of it (: But think how much richer
>these
>plays would be if we *did* know them.
>
>Camille
>verona_beach@geocities.com
That's just it -- the question makes No sense from a position of ignorace
:) You'd just find meaning apart from knowledge of that discipline.
What I was asking was, "Would the meaning you find reflect these beliefs
if you were not first aware of them?"
You do address my question, though, by saying the "structure" of Catcher
is "zen-like" in nature, not necessarily the content. It's not so much
specific beliefs that are reflected in the text but a quality of the
presentation of the text. I think I understand what you're saying better
now, but I'm not sure I agree with it :)
Jim
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