Re: Salinger & Zen
laura c. jessup (neilj@lightspeed.net)
Thu, 28 May 1998 18:20:46 -0700
we've been reading _catcher_ in my english class (i'm a junior in high
school). i must admit, at first, i was a little apprehensive, for
various reasons. i guess i don't care if i'm considered a "salinger
snob" because i'm a bit defensive of his work. i can't help it. i hate
having people tear it to shreds and try to tell me that my opinions on
it are flat out wrong when they've never read anything else. don't get
me wrong-- i'm very open to the opinions of others, i just hate it when
people try to relay their opinion as fact.
so, enter my english class today. my teacher, who is reading _catcher_
for the second time in his life, and has never read any other salinger,
read a book on salinger that talked about his influences in zen
buddhism, especially with the glass family, etc. and now "zen" is his
buzz word. he's never expanded on it, never tried to explain it to the
class, but he'll emphasize the word and bring it up constantly, but
that's all. and it's gotten really annoying and frustrating to me,
because i don't want to upshow him in his class, but no one else knows
anything about zen. i can't contain my frustration forever, and i was
obviously frustrated in class today, and he almost got mad at me. but
that's not my point. i don't know if i'm completely off here, but as
far as i can tell, zen is finding and creating ultimate simplicity in
understanding the total chaos of life and the world, or understanding
through simplicity. in a way, you can relate this to _catcher_ because
the book contains many ideas and is extremely complicated, as far as
people and happenings and thoughts go, but at the same time is very
simple and easy to follow, like the (or my, rather,) concept of zen. i
guess this is frustrating to me because he keeps on saying "there's that
whole _*zen*_ thing again," but he's not really referring to anything.
if i'm completely in the dark here, could someone please light me a
candle?
thanks,
~*laura.