RE: gary lane, 'the duino elegies', death haiku

Maybe Salinger associates Rilke with profound pain and strong emotional
memory of death since he discovered him in Europe during his recuperation
from battle fatigue(as far as my limited knowledge) so when He wrote
Bananafish, that was the poetry he associated strongly with his depression
or broken faculties after the war. From the little I know about literary
criticism, which is nothing, it seems to me the pschological motivation for
Seymour's sucide might have changed with Salinger's changing world view or
rather his exposure to eastern thought. But apparently from the post today
he never forgot Rilke's inspirational influnce conscious or otherwise.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Rovira [mailto:jrovira@drew.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 12:48 PM
To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
Subject: Re: gary lane, 'the duino elegies', death haiku

jeez, Kim, you remember the stories in such detail I don't think I can
respond fairly until I've read them again...

Pretty interesting discussion, though. If you see a difference between
Salinger's use of a poem and your reading of a poem -- does that mean that
Salinger reads the poem differently than you, or is he engaging in a
deliberate distortion of the poem to say something about Buddy or Seymour?
Or did he just misremember?

Jim

Kim Johnson wrote:

> well, i was probably just hedging my bet with
> 'subconscious'. it might have been much more. though
> buddy lumps the death poem in with that fey lamb-chop
> division of truth tale about 2 boyfriends: dorothy and
> bobby. and then goes on to talk of seymour's
> insistence that we must unlearn the differences
> between things. but to me the poem points in a
> different direction from that.
>
> and as gary lane says in his article, the fourth elegy
> ends with the proximity of the child with death, which
> links the poem even moreso. (lane does not mention
> the death haiku in his exegesis of the story.) the
> haiku poem merits a lot of attention, i think, since
> it is the only fact that salinger adds to the events
> of 'a perfect day'. but i readily admit i couldn't
> explain in a coherent manner what the poem 'means'.
>
> i do think salinger's love of poetry is crucial to an
> understanding of his work. over and over again he
> injects praise for poetry and poets: from that simple
> blake lyric in 'raise high' once providing physical
> medicinal help to buddy to seymour's mentioning of the
> current of poetry that runs through all things.
> and rilke seems to be rather a central poet for
> salinger.
>
> kim
> --- Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
> > um, excuse me, Kim, but what are you doing talking
> > about Salinger Here?
> >
> > Seriously, that's pretty interesting. I don't think
> > it necessarily had to
> > be a subconscious borrowing on Salinger's part,
> > though, do you?
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > Kim Johnson wrote:
> >
> > > i recently read an interesting essay by gary lane
> > > about 'a perfect day for bananafish'. in it he
> > > submits that the book of german poems seymour sent
> > > muriel is 'the duino elegies'. this seems right
> > to
> > > me. (notice that salinger nowhere refers to a
> > german
> > > poet; in fact rilke was born in prague, then part
> > of
> > > the austro-hungarian empire. as for the question
> > of
> > > whether it could be some other 20th century poet
> > > writing in german prior to 1948, one would be hard
> > > pressed to nominate someone else. besides, rilke
> > > receives mention in 'the stranger', 'the inverted
> > > forest', and, most importantly, for this post, in
> > > 'franny'.) gary lane attempts to illuminate parts
> > of
> > > 'bananafish' using the 'elegies' as a torchlight.
> > i'm
> > > not sure i was convinced that they provide the key
> > to
> > > the enigmas of the story. but it was welcoming to
> > see
> > > someone attempt to utilize the book in question
> > which
> > > was obviously on seymour's mind as they drove
> > down to
> > > florida.
> > >
> > > i referred to 'franny' above. the thing that
> > struck
> > > me is the thought that salinger himself would have
> > > re-read 'franny' before writing 'zooey'. (there
> > had
> > > been a hiatus of 2 years between stories, with
> > 'raise
> > > high' inbetween.) in 'franny' there is a direct
> > > reference to the fourth duino elegy. in 'zooey'
> > > salinger adds one new piece of information
> > regarding
> > > seymour's suicide. he says that seymour wrote a
> > haiku
> > > on the blotter of the hotel desk, in japanese. he
> > > translates it as 'the little girl on the plane/who
> > > turned her doll's head around/to look at me'. this
> > > elegy (which gary lane also refers to), is often
> > > called the doll elegy in rilke criticism. in the
> > elegy
> > > there is some dense symbolism which critics fight
> > > over. but the interesting thing to note is that
> > in a
> > > crucial passage rilke writes: 'when i feel like
> > it, to
> > > wait before the puppet stage,--no, rather/gaze so
> > > intensely on it that at last,/to upweigh my gaze,
> > an
> > > angel has to come,/and play a part there,
> > snatching up
> > > the husks./angel and doll! then there's at last a
> > > play./then there unites what we continually/part
> > by
> > > our being there.' my creaky post merely wants to
> > > suggest that salinger subconsiously remembered the
> > > fourth elegy when he wrote seymour's death poem.
> > that
> > > the poem's setting in a plane could denote the
> > angelic
> > > realm, with the little girl standing in for the
> > angel.
> > > angel and doll are united, and allows: 'then at
> > > last/can spring from our own turning years the
> > > cycle/of the whole event. over and above
> > us/there's
> > > then the angel playing.'
> > >
> > > i don't think the suicide can be explained by the
> > > poem, but i do find it gives thought that salinger
> > > added it after the fact.
> > >
> > > kim
> > >
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Received on Wed Sep 25 15:58:10 2002