{"id":1583,"date":"2004-08-17T10:04:19","date_gmt":"2004-08-17T14:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1583"},"modified":"2024-10-27T09:02:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T13:02:21","slug":"juvenilia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1583","title":{"rendered":"Salinger’s Maze of Parentheticals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emily talks about some of the early stories of Dylan Thomas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The stories are experimental, not all that successful apparently, but interesting nonetheless because of what it reveals about the author and his work.<\/p>\n

Reminds me a bit of reading Seymour: An Introduction<\/i> by JD Salinger. It was the last thing the man wrote. (Or, I should say, the last thing he published<\/em>.) It is a rambling run-on sentence, filled with so many parentheticals that you get lost in them. The language is an emotional maze. It becomes apparent, as you go along, why he stopped writing: he could no longer make any statements with any authority. (Not that authority is the way we measure an author, but you can feel Salinger’s<\/i> torment in the very act of writing the damn thing). Parentheticals have to follow every statement, exceptions, asides … It is an arduous read, with moments of brilliance, clarity and insight. It leaves me breathless, it leaves me sad. Because his voice is no longer with us. And it also makes me sad because – you can FEEL as you read that piece: Wow … this writing is like he is tearing out parts of his heart, his soul … It doesn’t feel fun. It exacted a toll on him. You can feel the price he is paying in the writing itself. I suppose he was no longer willing to pay that price, no longer willing to share those pieces of himself, it was too high a price to pay.<\/p>\n

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