Teddy = parts of Seymour ?
citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Fri, 17 Sep 1999 09:03:45 -0700
I have made a new subject line of this so it doesn't get lost. The Seymour
issue is rather a big one for me; probably because I was born at the medical
center of the university he taught at. I have just paged through Seymour an
Intro--a good 20 minutes--and come up with only:
1. In the paragraph beginning, "At this point, it doesn't seem to me
merely chummy to mention that I have written about my brother before...",
Buddy talks about how if he had to write a story about a dinosaur he would
give him some of S.'s mannerisms. And then speaks of some people--not close
friends--who insisted a lot of Seymour went into "the young leading
character of the one novel I published ... but I will say that no one who
knew my brother has asked or told me anything of the kind--by which I'm
grateful..." Said long paragraph then admits to the flawed Bananafish
story with the "Seymour" character really being a representation of Buddy.
[This is crucial because the Seymour of Bananafish is NOT the Seymour of the
Glass Saga. Yes, the Glass Saga Seymour committed suicide, but I wager if
JDS could have re/written APDFB in '55 right after Raise High, the
atmospherics, the depiction of Seymour, would have been much different.
Obviously Buddy regrets the Bananafish story. And much later in SAI, in the
long paragraph beginning, "One remark in this last paragraph...", Buddy
admits he needs to readdress Seymour's suicide: "--the details of his
suicide, and I don't expect to be ready to do that, at the rate I'm going
for several more years." Just my pet theory, no need to agree.]
2. The other paragraph, beginning "In one or two conveniently describable
ways...." contains the only reference to Teddy in SAI. Buddy talks about
the "short story about a 'gifted' little boy aboad a transatlantic
liner",quotes the sentence from "Teddy" re his eyes. Buddy then says those
eyes"were not Seymour's eyes at all. Yet at least two members of my family
knew and remarked that I was trying to get at his eyes with
thatdescription..." Buddy then attempts to describe , what I infer, are the
eyes of a God-knower, a mukta, a ring-ding enlightened man, and makes a hash
of it like Schopenhauer. A thought: was Schopenhauer describing the eyes
of the Buddha?
Granted, I might have missed what Camille and Jim are referring to. Will,
Sonny, Tim--please set us all straight.
--Bruce
-----
From: Camille Scaysbrook <verona_beach@hotpop.com>
To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu <bananafish@lists.nyu.edu>
Date: Friday, September 17, 1999 2:29 AM
Subject: Re: Teddy and Booper
>citycabn wrote:
>> ----- Camille wrote:
>> It's
>> >always interested me that in S:AI Salinger/Buddy admits that Teddy is a
>> >fictionalised portrait of Seymour --
>>
>>
>> I think you have that wrong. Buddy is talking about only the *eyes* of
>> Teddy and Seymour being similar. (Though in fact they are quite
>physically
>> different; as I feel the personalities of Teddy and Seymour are.)
>>
>> Question: anyone know which Schopenhauer work and personage JDS is
>> referring to in the Seymour eyes section of SAI?
>
>No, there's definitely a reference in there to the fact that the character
>of Teddy is `based' on Seymour - it's somewhere in S:AI which, I am
>chagrined to admit, I don't currently have a copy of. Buddy speaks about
>how although the two characters are physically different, Teddy was sort of
>pieced together with equivalencies to aspects of Seymour. Can anyone help
>me out here?
>
>P.S. I am equally chagrined to admit I know next to nothing about
>Schopenhauer. For an anti-intellectual Salinger can sure make some
>high-falutin references (:
>
>Camille
>verona_beach@hotpop.com
>