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

I actually feel the same way you do about Catcher and the Glass stories (I
get a lot more out of the Glass stories). . .just, if you want to judge
Salinger's influence, there's just no getting around or beyond Catcher.

It's really hard for me to compare Salinger to, say, O'Connor and Carver,
although I agree he stands up well to both (and both stand up well to
him). All three seemed to be coming from completely different places.
There were other writers on the list that probably do deserve the same kind
of attention Salinger gets just by the quality of their writing, and then
there's John Irving -- who drives me nuts but I keep finding myself reading
his novels.

Catcher is such an important cultural icon it's really not a fair
comparison to say that people aren't doing worthwhile work if they haven't
written a Catcher. Those types of novels just don't come around often,
period. Rushdie's _Satanic Verses_ actually offers me more than Catcher
does. So does Delillo's _Underground_. Or Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_.
But I'll bet anything someone offering a undergraduate class in Salinger
would get quite a few more registrations than someone offering a class in
Pynchon or Delillo (or both) -- and that most of the students in it would
have already read at least one thing by the author.

Jim

Kim Johnson wrote:

> --- 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 12:19:26 2002