Re: Love song of Alfred L. Theorist
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Sun, 19 Sep 1999 12:50:30 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 9/19/99 9:15:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
holden@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in writes:
<< I am not sure whether I came across this in the story itself, or some
commentary or the other -- but isn't there some explanation somewhere
about those transparent-glass type paperweights that are quite common
to come across in these parts which have multi-colored "tree of life"s
in them? As a distraction, quite common to be playing around with
them...and when trying to spin them it seems like an inverted
forest...
I could look up references if I can find to the usage as such as "the
inverted forest" in any of the translations of Upanishads or the Vedas
itself...but the allusion and the mythologies which use the metaphor
are pretty well known to my mind.
Sonny >>
That's interesting. Look, bottom line to me is that the words "inverted
forest" are pretty Danged Odd, and to understand them (and the story) we need
to hook them to something outside themselves.
I appreciate your point in your previous post, and it's not unlike what I
meant by my analogy of "laying a piece of tracing paper over a painting." Of
course it's not uncommon that some lines will match between a drawing and a
painting that have nothing to do with one another, really. So we need more
than just a similar phrase to draw associations between Salinger's use of the
words "inverted forest" and the Rig Veda, the Upanishads, etc. I would look
for substantial overlap between the values and ideas of the one and the
values and ideas of the other.
But, again, since Salinger did indeed quote the Gita and the Upanishads
commonly in his writings it is a bit dense to **not** at least look in this
direction when reading him.
Jim