Re: Hapworthless
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@hotpop.com)
Wed, 06 Oct 1999 17:22:27 +1000
Matt wrote:
> > Why should we assume that the fab boy Cornish is proposing a realistic
> > situation in "Hapworth"?
>
> >>
Jim wrote:
> That's a good question and possibly the route by which Hapworth as a
piece of
> writing can be redeemed, but the next obvious question would be,
>
> "what point does the unreality serve?"
Yes, good point. Having just headed to the beginning of the Glass saga
again I wonder if Hapworth isn't another case of Buddy using Seymour as a
kind of metaphor for the creative voice. All we ever see or hear of Seymour
is filtered through Buddy; we really can't trust anything he says, not the
least the odd conceit of `typing out' a letter for us, word for word.
Sometimes I wonder if Seymour `exists' at all or, at the very least, what
we have of the Glass canon is Buddy's attempt to deal with Seymour's
suicide in a combination of fiction and reality. So Hapworth could be
justified perhaps as part of Buddy's attempt to unravel the origins of
whatever led Seymour to suicide. Again, I would also cite the short story
that Buddy mentions which, if it is exists - and it's fairly likely it does
- may say absolute barrels about what Hapworth actually means. Ah,
Salinger, giving us one half of the jigsaw puzzle - on purpose! Rotten old
bastard (:
I wonder also if when Salinger first came up with the idea of Seymour, his
idea would be that he would be his surrogate for the Glass world. The first
inklings we have of him in APDFB are fairly Salinger-autobiographical - a
guy with a creative bent cracking up in the army (`and all', I'm tempted to
add (: ) I wonder if Buddy Glass didn't evolve later, and Salinger decided
to transfer his surrogacy to him. This would also explain *Buddy's*
explaination of the Seymour of APDFB being more a portrait of himself
rather than of the actual Seymour.
Camille
verona_beach@hotpop.com