Re: down with zen
the.tourist@excite.com
Tue, 02 Mar 1999 09:28:06 -0800 (PST)
Scottie observed:
> Once he begins to 'illustrate' topics - like the
> 'point of existence', or the 'best way to live'
> he becomes, no matter how well hidden, a kind of
> preacher. And begins to take his eye off the
> ball - which for a writer I suggest should, above
> all, be the realisation of the individual & what
> he makes of his world.
Could it be the inexorable sense of power and influence that a
suddenly-popular writer feels?--to at last have the clout to share all the
pedantic ideas he/she has had but has never felt really fits in a story?
I've seen Scottie's observation a lot myself, usually occurring in a
writer's earliest or latest work. The young writer must learn to filter the
didactics out of his/her prose in the interest of telling a story, so why
does it appear later?
Are we all preachers at heart, biding our time until the lectern is ours?
I know I am.
> Which is the reason, I suppose, the Catcher seems
> to me an incomparably finer & more moving piece
> than all the tortuous, dinky, philosophisings of
> the Glass family.
I tend to agree with Scottie there, although perhaps not so vehemently. I
don't think Seymour is "dinky"--although Buddy, when he's revved up in his
little mountain cottage and I'm revved up in my little bedroom, can feel a
tad torturous.
Or is that "tourtuous?"
--Brendan
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