Re: Seymour: A Continuation
citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 11:30:34 -0700
Camille wrote:
>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.
I don't think S. committed suicide because his carnality overcame him.
Carnality, like his Hapworth problem of grappling with and taming written
English, were things to be faced, if you will. He needs to get *to* his
bull's -eye poet's language (achieved circa 16, 17). I don't thing S. was
in the thralls of carnality later in life. Remember, Mrs. Fedder wonders
why he hasn't yet seduced Muriel.
>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?
Seymour knows some of what will happen in the *future*. Via his glimpses, I
think he calls them. Like the important party, mature Buddy writing story,
and his (S.'s) not living much past c. 30.
> 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.
The prescience seems absurd to the West, not, I think, to those religious
types in the East.
>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!
Yes, very good, totally agree!
And a few addenda:
Jim,
I personally don't think JDS painted himself into a corner. Think the
critics, etc. alight on S.'s suicide and tried to beat JDS over the head
with it along the lines of how can S. be so great if he committed suicide.
To my mind, JDS/Buddy tells us why S. committed suicide in SAI. The entire
prelude is about this. And ends with the section re the cororner's report,
whether it is consumption, loneliness or suicide:
"isn't it plain how the true artist-seer actually dies? I say (and
everything that follows in these pages all too possibly stands or falls on
my being at least *nearly* right)--I say that the true artist-seer, the
heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by
his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human
conscience."
Mike,
I think it was Ed F. who brought up the Fugs in response to my reference to
Buddy's recommendation of using a Blake lyric to help with pain. Congrats
on finishing the short story!
Camille,
Great Gertrude Stein quote.
--Bruce