just names

Names which mean a lot to me: Seymour Glass, Buddy Glass…Michael Holme…Vivi…names in a phone book…but oh what they mean to me! And they’re fictional even…

I feel so defensive about certain characters. And I am almost masochistic in the sense that I google and find arbid and hideous, hateful, unbearable articles – reviews, critical analysis of the books that they appear in…or in particular Seymour Glass and Salinger. A lot of people seem to think a lot of completely mental [to me] things about them…

1. some think Seymour was definitely insane
2. some started talking about sexual perversion and there I stopped reading…
3. some think Buddy was distorting the image of Seymour…suggesting that he was a poet, a genius when in fact he wasn’t as seen in his diaries and the sample poems…

…but how could anyone think that? Or rather maybe the question is…how come I am so willing and definitely no doubt about it believe that yes Seymour could indeed see things…and that his suicide was something that he couldn’t have avoided…that his behaviour at his wedding was just something he had to do…and that throwing that stone…I mean it made sense to me at the time…he did do it cause she was so perfect…I mean he was the person who felt that touching people left marks on him…physical marks…certain heads…her yellow dress…I definitely believe that he did indeed write the long long wise letter to his parents from camp…why would Buddy concoct a fictional letter and refer to himself in the letter…

Ok now its getting convoluted cause now I’m talking about Buddy as the author of Bananafish…which in the Salinger-Glass universe he is. The critics seem to think that Salinger was obsessed with Seymour to the point that he created this totally unrealistic character with a really boring family.

But he had me pronged from the first moment….I don’t remember what I read first…I think it was ‘Franny and Zooey’ then ‘Nine Stories’…so banafish before ‘Raise high the roof beams…’ and ‘Seymour an Introduction’…I mean everything is just so interconnected…by analysing Seymour as this insane person…that says that Buddy was delusional…and so is Booboo and everyone…

…I guess my real argument more that why would Buddy do that…it’s why would Salinger do that…why write a story and make it seem genuine while actually under the surface indicating that everyone’s being deceptive…that seems very anti him to me…I mean everything iv read by Salinger gives me this feeling of…look here’s a piece of ultimate truth…something so pure that its hard to believe one man put it down in words on an actual existing piece of paper. Like white light. Holding hands. A soft pat/stroke on the head. Touching and being touched.

And I mean that in a completely non sexual perversion way!
Grr.

but oh the joy of finding someone who gets it!

:)