Re: Re: intelligence of the author vs. intelligence of the characters

--- James Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
>
>
> What you did say in your previous post was that
> those programs were a complete waste of time.
> That's mistaken. If all you meant was that they're
> not for everyone, that's an odd way of saying it --
> it sounded like you meant they weren't for anyone.

in reading my last post i don't see that i said it was
a 'complete waste of time.' the post was an off the
cuff wondering if the mfa programs weren't all that
they were cracked up to be. that, given the thousands
of graduates, they hadn't produced someone on the
level of a salinger. and i mention the question of
temperment of the writer as a possible determining
factor on how the mfa might affect him. but i'm not
fool enough to say that one wouldn't get anything out
of such a program. that would be absurd. (not that
i've been in such a program...so you can discount all
i've said...) :)

> I think you also need to broaden your conception of
> accomplishment if you're only willing to see Raymond
> Carver and Flannery O'Connor from the lists below as
> being "accomplished." It boasts of Pulitzer and, I
> think, Nobel prize winners -- honors I don't think
> Salinger ever won.

no, i didn't say that no one else was 'accomplished.'
you asked me to identify those that were as
accomplished as salinger. and i stick by my reply
that, despite the 'awards', the only two writers from
your list on salinger's level are o'connor and carver.
but i'm not saying the others haven't accomplished
anything. they're successful, creative writers with
wonderful vitaes, but not at the level of salinger for
my book-buying money.

 
> I'm not sure that Nine Stories has much historic
> significance outside the fact that it was written by
> Salinger. While Catcher spawn imitators, I don't
> think the stories did. I still think For Esme and
> Pretty Mouth are the best things Salinger ever wrote
> -- better than Catcher, even. You don't see
> Salinger anthologized much at all these days,
> though. That may be Salinger's decision, and if
> that's the case, he's shooting himself in the foot.
> If all he wants to be remembered for is Catcher,
> then that's the quickest way to do it....
>

ben yagoda, in his history of 'the new yorker' gives a
fairly good sense of the excitement salinger caused in
the late 40s, early 50s with his stories. but to show
you how flawed my sense of literary worth is, i think
the glass stories are better, more important, that
'the catcher.'

kim

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Received on Tue Sep 3 12:02:43 2002