Re: Buddy's Four Virgils
William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Thu, 14 Oct 1999 20:56:13 -0400 (EDT)
Sundeep's little dance with SK was particularly sweet in light of Wendy
Steiner's essay in this week's NY Times Book Review which my wife has
recycled before I could recycle more of Steiner's thinking here...I did
however dash off the fillowing to the editors and post it with the usual
existential love and squalor, will
10/10/99
Dear Editor,
Wendy Steiner's ironic twisting of "metafictional fireworks" with
"the extraordinary commonplace of love" is a nice dynamic that should have
referenced a writer who does both. I haven't read Steiner's monograph and
can only respond to "Look who's Modern Now," but it seems to me that J.D.
Salinger is not only overlooked by Steiner, but is a glaring exception to
her claims.
Salinger's early work qualifies him to stand with Roth and Mailer
as "rear guard men." The ongoing sales of The Catcher in the Rye evidences
Salinger's role as important author in any discussion contemporary
American fiction, and the recent appearance of "Holden Garfield" in
Marianne Wiggins's Almost Heaven nicely illustrates the point that
Salinger's work continues to influence today's authors (regardless of
gender).
As the second half of the century began, Salinger's fiction
evolved more toward postmodern experimentation. Salinger fragmented and
challenged story telling sensibilities with the de-evolution of Seymour
Glass, a character introduced via his own suicide. The l949 story, "A
Perfect Day For Bananafish," was traditional in its length, with three
part movement from beginning to middle to end. By l965, Salinger ended his
publishing career with "Hapworth 16, l924," a long, rambling letter from 7
year-old Seymour that defies narrative sense. It pushed the New Yorker's
usual publishing criteria--Salinger's "story" was the whole content of the
magazine, and nothing like it has been published since.
Seeing the experimental aspect of Salinger's later, longer work is
not hard, nor should it be hard to see that Salinger's work with Seymour
Glass goes way beyond the point of considering the absurdities of life.
Had Salinger left us with the mysterious suicide in l949, Steiner's point
would probably be more apropos, but I think she has not considered this
important writer carefully enough.
I'm not certain what Steiner really means by valuing writers who
address "existential pain," but I think Salinger's fiction does ask
readers to deal deeply with some of the notions the critic vaguely
referred to in her essay. Salinger's writing explores spiritual,
aesthetic, intellectual, familial and even critical pain, perhaps more
than Steiner wishes to consider, but never worth ignoring.
Sincerely,
Will Hochman
PS: I wrote a l994 dissertation at NYU ("Strategies of Critical Response
to the Fiction of J.D. Salinger") and send this letter as penance.