Re: From Daumier to Smith

Pasha Paterson (gpaterso@richmond.edu)
Wed, 15 Sep 1999 17:14:47 -0400 

At 16:21 09/15/99 -0400, Mattis Fishman wrote:
>    It seems that Jim is puzzled by the epiphany at the shop window, and to
>    me the viewpoint presented by Russell as described by Jon and supported
>    by Pasha seems almost contrived. It certainly is a nice "moral", that our
>    self-centered, cerebral observations can cause the simple, sincere and
>    genuine "observee" to lose balance, yet it seems unrelated to the rest of
>    the story which does not deal so much with Jean interfering in others'
life
>    so much as trying to figure out his own.

I admit that trying to figure out what Salinger was doing with this scene
is a bit like trying to catch faeries in a net.  My comments were sort of a
meta-meaning, in that I only picked up on what I saw after someone else
commented on them, and not from reading the original text.  Conclusions
drawn from such perceived "meanings" are often interesting, but just as
often totally unintended or even absent.

>    The events at the store window puzzle me as well, and perhaps this is an
>    indication of "weak" writing, or a least the "willfully strange", in
that,
>    as everyone seems to suggest, it is just too hard to see what brought
>    about the rapid change (by the way, Pasha, I thought that he did not "cut
>    loose" his students at this point, but reinstate Howard and Bambi, no?).

I, too, have not read the story for a while.  I think I do, as you say,
have it backwards, which would...uh...not really support my interpretation
very much.  Ah, well.

>    [...]
>    What seems to stick out the most obviously in this story is that Jean
>    is lonely, isolated young person, who indulges in fantasy to the point
>    that he lies more convincingly than he tells the truth. If his lies
>    were designed solely to gain credibility with others I could see calling
>    him self-centered, but he seems so lost, so absorbed in the persona he
has
>    created for himself, from his name, to his religion, to his dislike of
>    chairs, etc., that he appears to be pitiable.[...]

In my Modern Short Fiction class in the summer of '98, my students and I
struggled with the question of whether D-Smith was an "innocent" character
or a "phony" one.  One student came to the conclusion that he was really a
childlike character, playing at a persona who acts like a self-centered
phony, who in turn tries to dress himself up as someone more enlightened.
Such a circle is confusing at best, but seems strangely to fit D-Smith's
behavior, or at least his writing style.  His obsession with being someone
he isn't is motivated not by a quest for glory but, in agreement with what
you pointed out, a simple play-act or daydream.

Overanalyzing any part of this story tends to take the humor out of it.
Maybe this whole scene was just another instance of the naive D-Smith's
rather humorous over- or misinterpretations.


_________________________________________________

  Pasha Paterson          gpaterso@richmond.edu
  Owner/Designer/Operator, The Digital Dustbin:
  http://www.student.richmond.edu/~gpaterso/
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