Re: Hapworthless
citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Tue, 28 Sep 1999 09:40:27 -0700
Our Lady of Australia wrote:
. As for the Childe Seymoure, he's just
>another step in Salinger's deification of the child, from cute little
>soothsayer (Mattie) to bringer of simple truth (Phoebe) to annoyingly
>prescient seer (Teddy) to, well, Christ Incarnate.
Very, very well put.
>I was mulling over the case of the child in JDS's writings the other day
>after having re-read `For Esme'. It occured to me that it's so strange - in
>a lot of ways Esme is portrayed similar to Seymour in Hapworth 16 - she
>tries to use big words and sound grown up, she is guilelessly
>self-reflective and unsentimental - in short, a typical graduate of
>Salinger's Kindergarten of Precocious Kids. Why then, do things come out of
>her mouth so endearingly and from Seymour's so obnoxiously? Why do we
>reject Seymour's adult voice and embrace Esme's? Why on the whole is
>Seymour's character - be it adult or child - one that so seldom evokes
>affection in the way Esme's does, or Phoebe Caulfield's? I feel that if we
>had felt a greater affection for Seymour, Hapworth may have been a greater
>success.
I agree re the obnoxious Hapworth voice. But feel it plays a role in
concretely showing us Seymour's development from irksome precocious child
genius to the mature Seymour of the earlier stories (which Buddy says in SAI
happened at age 16 or 17, when he came "into his own true, bull's-eye poet's
vocabulary"). (For me, the post-7-year-old Seymour character evokes
affection, to use your word.) But I will admit the Seymour of Bananafish
doesn't rhyme with the Glass Saga Seymour. And I think the Bananafish
Seymour may oftentimes too deeply color the reading of the rest of the
stories. For me, the most important passage re Seymour's essence is in SAI,
"... he was all *real* things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our
double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience,
our supercargo, and our one full poet, ... --that, with or without a suicide
plot in his head, he was the only person I've ever habitually consorted
with, banged around with, who more frequently than not tallied with the
classical conception, as I saw it, of a mukta, a ringding enlightened man, a
God-knower." Seymour is the reason the Glass Saga was written. While he is
still riding Joe Jackson's bicylce, he is also The Davega Bicycle.
--Bruce
PS: And do I correctly recall you mentioning you *don't* own a copy of
RHTRBC & SAI? Get thee to a bookstore! :)