Seymour: A Continuation
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@hotpop.com)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 12:02:52 +1000
Right, I took up my reading of Hapworth where I left off a week or two ago
last night. And may I say, God rain down small fluffy animals in no large
measure, what a touching, enlightening, heartrending journey it has been!
(:
Seriously (and for those who could never make it past the first few pages,
do press on as, like Shakespeare or Austen, once you settle into the
distinctive rhythm of the piece it's quite satisfying), some more things
occured to me (I am now up to page 38, just under the weird, vaguely
right-wing cartoon) that firmly place Hapworth as a Salinger exemplar. The
mistrust of intellectualism and false affection and emotion, they're all
there. Salinger `types' abound - not only in the sense of the sort of
characters JDS frequently uses, but even in a quasi-biblical sense. Mrs
Happy is both a type of Mary Hudson and a type of Muriel. She does not
however seem to be a type of Charlotte, the girl that Seymour threw a rock
at because he thought she was so beautiful. Does that mean that the
qualities of Mary and Charlotte are synthesised in Muriel?
I have firmly underlined the section in which Seymour talks of his `karmic
responsibility' to `enter into a contest' with his carnality. The whole
passage - combined as it is with Seymour's talk about how short will be his
`appearance' in this life - absolutely hums of Bananafish, the ultimate
image of carnality winning over reason. Is that why Seymour committed
suicide, because his carnality overcame him; he lost that battle and Muriel
was the reason? How could a seven year old have such an awareness? I put
forward a new theory that ticked around in my mind all night. I have
already discussed the possibility that Buddy is in fact the author of this
letter; that it is another attempt to explain Seymour's actions to himself.
However, the following passage made me think of another possibility:
`Considering my absurd age, the situation has its humourous side, to be
sure, but merely in simple retrospect, I regret to say'.
What a weird connotation this passage has. That Seymour knows what he will
be thinking in retrospect; that he seems to so easily step outside himself.
It occured to me: what if this was reached by a simpler route? That is,
that this letter is being written by a Seymour who knows what happened in
retrospect? What is to say, I propose, that this letter wasn't written by
Seymour many years later in the `voice' of younger Seymour? I have always
wondered exactly why Buddy chose this particular letter to `tell' to us -
whether he is just a finicky completist or whether it represents some
crucial awakening of something in his psyche. I wonder if Hapworht is not,
in fact, Seymour's very oblique suicide note? In some ways it's certainly a
lot nicer way of explaining away Seymour's rather absurd prescience.
Boy, I love that Griffith Hammersmith, I totally kowtow to Seymour on that
one. He *is* a heartrending little fellow. Did his habit of burying his
toothbrushes in the woods remind anyone of something? To me it had definite
resonances of D.B. Caulfield's `The Secret Goldfish', as well as a whole
coterie of Salingerian characters who, by choice, necessity or both decide
to keep something secret: The Laughing Man's face, the mysterious nun in
DDSBP (who, let's face it, could even be another Salinger type) - perhaps
even Holden Caulfield himself whose entire diatribe may have been inspired
(I have been known to argue) by childhood abuse. This is particularly
resonant when we consider that Salinger, the master-hider, has been
metaphorically burying the past 35 years of work in the Cornish woods (or,
if you like, keeping them in a goldfish bowl away from sight).
Off this topic, and backtracking a bit, something else occured to me. We
all know that Buddy is a type of Salinger - that is his biography confers
with Salinger's to a certain point and then diverges (in the fact that
Buddy is a lecturer at a university). Could D.B. Caulfield be Salinger's
similar Hitchcockian entree into Catcher? Consider: Like JD, DB is referred
to by his initials. JDS was at that point famous for an enigmatic story
with `fish' in the title. And most obviously, JDS was a short story writer
- who at one point had also highly considered `prostituting' himself to the
highly lucrative film industry, which is the point where, like with Buddy,
JDS seems to be considering an alternative version of himself. Just a
thought, anyway. Combine this with the fact that one of the early
unpublished Holden Caulfield stories is apparently (drumroll) .... a letter
home from Holden while he is at summer camp!
Phew. Well that will be as much to absorb as it was to write. Good luck
amigos! (:
Camille
verona_beach@hotpop.com