Re: The New Yorker Snubs Catcher
jason varsoke (jjv@caesun.msd.ray.com)
Thu, 16 Sep 1999 15:36:58 -0400 (EDT)
> As a reward for those of you who waded through my post re the Alexander
> biography, the following quote:
>
> ...Salinger instructed Olding to submit The Catcher in the Rye in manuscript
> form to the New Yorker [American and British book deals were already lined
> up]. ...Salinger hoped the magazine would publish excerpts....
> Astonishingly the editors did not like the novel and refused to publish any
> excerpts. On Jan. 25, 1951, Lobrano wrote to Salinger to smooth over hurt
> feelings since S. was irate about the magazine's decision. At least two
> editors had read the novel, Lobrano said, and their main problems with the
> book were simple. They did not believe the two sibling relationships
> (Phoebe-Holden and Allie-D.B.) were "tenable"; those relationships were too
> similar. [Huh?] What's more, Lobrano himself, or so he said, felt S. was not
> ready to write the novel; to him, S. seemed "imprisoned" by the novel's mood
> and scenes.
The other day a fellow writer and I were talking about the value of
workshopping different pieces. Inevitablly you get people saying, "this
character is unbelievable" "I don't believe this could happen." "there's
no way Seymour coul really be like that." "The Glasses are too bright."
etc etc and so on. We were looking at the Denis Johnson book "Jesus' Son"
and though there was no way any of that was making it past a workshop.
Sometimes the plot is so fractured you have no idea what you just read.
However, it's great stuff.
I think the point of this is that often the people who "know"
literature are blinded by the rules they've aquired. And "there is no
accounting for taste."
-j