Salinger & Zen/ Teddy & Seymour
Michael Sussman (qironzh@rocketmail.com)
Fri, 29 May 1998 08:06:33 -0700 (PDT)
I have no idea how much JDS read at the time, clearly enough to
discount Suzuki and the Beats, SAI p. 207: “...because Zen is rapidly
becoming a rather smutty, cultish word to the discriminating ear, and
with great, if superficial justification. (I say superficial because
pure Zen will surely survive its Western champions...Pure Zen, need I
add...will be here even after snobs like me have departed.)” Buddy
also attacks existentialism; see SAI p. 100
Frankly, I don’t see what any form of Buddhism has to do with JDS. The
only references to Buddhism I remember is of Buddy’s lecturing on
Mahayana literature, and Zooey’s remarks about the great masters
(Seymour & Buddy) instructing Franny & himself to say the 4 vows
before meals.
What does “Teddy” have to do with Buddhism? Vedantic ideas--yes,
explicitly, even a Vedantic reading of O.T. if that’s how you take it.
(Campbell’s view is presented in a succinct and, I believe, largely
inaccurate essay “The Separation of East and West [1961].) Is the bit
about “seeing the world as it is” that we find in “Teddy” particularly
Buddhist? If it is, then you’ve got something; but it ain’t much.
About Seymour:
After I gave up my pre-mature idea that Seymour killed himself because
he could deal with everyone else’s phoniness (I hadn’t yet read any of
Salinger’s other books), it occurred to me that Seymour died because
he had attained enlightenment but realized that he couldn’t fulfill
the vow to save all sentient beings no matter how numerous. I wasn’t
sure of this then, and I’m not now.
Of course, Seymour’s death may just be another standard of Salinger
fiction: The Dead Older Brother. Especially the dead older successful
and/or god-seeing brother. I’m currently working on a “Taoist” read of
“Bananafish.” We’ll see.
------Sussby
===
Thirty spokes converge on a single hub,
but it is in the place where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the cart lies.
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