Re: Teddy = parts of Seymour ?
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@hotpop.com)
Wed, 22 Sep 1999 16:15:32 +1000
Sunny wrote (of the influence of Eastern religion on Salinger):
> That could well be said about anything. The thriller writers could be
> structuring their stories around the garden of Eden, a seductive bite,
> a serpent, the triumph of good over evil...And then there are all
> those bits about how there are only 16 themes (or maybe 32?) for any
> story and so on.
Of course - that guy who wrote `The Bible Code' full well knows that (and
apparently applying his famously arbitrary Code to other books has yielded
lots of `miraculous' revelations - apparently Moby Dick told of JFK's
assasination and so on).
But I think it's quite beyond mere speculation that Salinger was interested
in, and influenced by, Eastern religion. We *know* it, he's said it - all
we have to discern is how early on, to what extent ... which varies
throughout his career. It appears in his work residually, obliquely,
obviously and covertly, in various guises - but one thing we CAN NOT deny
is that religion - from all parts of the world - is one of Salinger's
implicit themes. I simply don't understand how Salinger's fiction can be
fully comprehended or appreciated without at least some knowledge of this!
This is quite beyond structure, theme, or even Seymour quoting the
Bhavagad-Gita on the back of his door - this is the fabric of which
Salinger's fiction is woven. The search for the TRUTH. This, I believe, is
tremendously important in the study of his approach to ficiton. I'm not
saying either that it makes his fiction more special, more attractive or
less attractive - it's just a simple `is' as far as I'm concerned.
I've already postulated the various similarities between `Catcher' and
various Eastern (and Western) religious texts in my famous and oft-posted
essay on the topic - and some of those simply can't be explained away by
the 32 major plotlines theory.
Camille
verona_beach@hotpop.com