Re: ZOOEYCAM
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Wed, 03 Mar 1999 17:14:22 +1100
Jim wrote:
> 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.
As far as I know Salinger's interest in Eastern religion - and I'll use
that broad qualification - was, like any sort of interest, something that
grew from an amateur to serious study. Such a growth of study is, I think,
represented in his work. To me, `Teddy' is the work of someone who is crazy
about something - in this case, Eastern religion - and wants to tell
everyone about it. It's a pretty broad, Zen 101 view of things. So too
`Catcher' - it seems to exhibit the mind of someone who's been studying Zen
in the night and then going back to his `day job'. Residually, it feels all
like the influence is over it to me. Like you say, we must be wary of
imposing such things on his work with the benefit of hindsight, but knowing
the direction his fiction was one day to take it's not at all unreasonable
to try to track its growth in his stories and novel - and it *is* a growth,
when we consider the progression even from `Franny' to `Zooey'. People
don't become interested and influenced by things overnight.
I've argued a lot for my interpretation of Salinger's use of Zen as a
structural and sometime thematic device in his writings (I still haven't
found that thesis I wrote on the topic, anyone got it on file?). I've read
that Salinger wrote much Eastern style poetry in the 40s and 50s that he
would rather have died than show to a magazine - the stories for which were
his main source of income. I don't think it's unreasonable that his study
of Eastern religion should inform - even subconsciously - his writing of
stories, a craft which, like that of the koan or haiku, involves
compression of meaning into the smallest, most elegant and ineffable
package. Or even that he should try to edify his public - as the great
Phony Basher would presumably like to?
Like everything this can only ever remain a theory but I don't think it's a
wholly implausible one.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest