Re: Inverted Tree Reference
William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Sat, 18 Sep 1999 10:08:51 -0400 (EDT)
Gerald Graff wrote a book called _literature against itself_ and it
discussed it's title well, claiming lit's great tradition is what it
changes and rebels against (I think, it's been a while...). I think
Salinger could have been referring to poetry as well...scooping up links
to eliot, upanishads, and lit's energy to scape beneath surfaces to find
new meaning makes me think JDS was seeing both tree and forest in this
story. I think it was Eberhard Alsen who theorized the story could have
made "Nine" into "Ten" but JDS also tried to block a cosmopolitan reprint
of it and didn't include it. Personally, I still think it's a great story
and offers an "aesthetique du mal" that is both chilling and
insightful...in other words, Salinger's offering of a bleak, almost mean
seeing (and near blindness) of a poet is perhaps, "The Road Not Taken" by
Seymour...((I have to admit one of the poets on this list riffed on this
very same frost poem and I confess to writing a ridiculoulsy parental
essay for first year college students titled "The Road Taken--Driving Your
Learning Lives Into College." I hope it's clear that I need a writing
life and am getting on with it;))
will