[Bananafish] RE: bananafish Digest, Vol 22, Issue 2

Wed May 3 16:59:58 EDT 2006

Do you have a name?

Sincerely,

Chris Kubica

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Application Architects, LLC
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> From: The Mad Hatter <theurbanentropy at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: bananafish list <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
> Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 15:41:20 -0400
> To: <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
> Subject: RE: [Bananafish] RE: bananafish Digest, Vol 22, Issue 2
> 
> ladies and gentlemen, this "delicious speculation" is exactly the kind of
> things forums are made of. relish the controversies and pardon the quotes,
> the links...
> 
> "He is never physically described, nor does his Jewishness play a part in
> the narrative. One of the things that really got up Maxwell Geismar's nose
> was what he saw as Salinger's craven refusal to admit that all his
> characters were Jewish. Of Catcher Geismar wrote, "The locale of the New
> York sections is obviously that of a comfortable middle-class urban Jewish
> society where, however, all the leading figures have become beautifully
> Anglicized. Holden and Phoebe Caulfield: what perfect American social
> register names which are presented to us in both a social and a
> psychological void!" (In his discussion of "Zooey," Geismar dryly noted that
> the family cat, Bloomberg, "is apparently the only honest Jewish character
> in the tale.") As it happens, Salinger is himself honestly half-Jewish: his
> mother, née Marie Jillich, was an Irish-Catholic who, however, changed her
> name to Miriam and passed herself off as a Jew after she married Salinger's
> father, Sol, with the result that Salinger and his older sister Doris grew
> up believing they were wholly Jewish; only when Doris was nineteen, and
> after Salinger had been bar mitzvahed, were they told the surprising truth."
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14272
> 
> If you go to read the original Geismar article..it digs deeper.
> 
> I didn't mean to stir up speculation on Doris dear..I wound't dare...but
> from what I had found, it seemed quite a shock to think that you're a jew in
> full effects and then you find out your mum is an ex catholic. and
> anyway..in the jewish community, from the little I know, the "converts",
> especially in those days, aren't especially welcomed in the social tribe all
> too grandly...
> 
> Kevin..you happen to be in a forum, for goodness sake..if we don't label
> things here, then where are we supposed to..as good ol' Kipling says "All
> the people like us are we, And everyone else is They". i'm personally a bit
> fed up with the politically correct. but thats my unpolitical take, of
> course.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> From: "kenny2 at verizon.net" <kenny2 at verizon.net>
>> Reply-To: kenny2 at verizon.net, bananafish list <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
>> To: bananafish at lists.bway.net
>> Subject: [Bananafish] RE: bananafish Digest, Vol 22, Issue 2
>> Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 13:23:27 -0400
>> 
>> 
>> I hate to blow a hole in all this delicious speculation, but the truth of
>> the matter is far more sane. Salinger's "Irish-Catholic" mother was
>> actually born in Iowa and she never "pretended" to be Jewish. When she
>> eloped with Sol, her own parents disowned her. On the other hand, the
>> Salingers embraced her, so she converted both out of gratitude and to ease
>> her position into the family (now her only family). Salinger was well-aware
>> that his mother was Catholic. He celebrated Christmas as a child. After
>> all, he went straight from his Bar Mitzvah to McBurney - run by the YMCA.
>> Such things were the norm. if anyone in the family struggled with their
>> heritage it was Soloman. His ambition often clashed with his traditions.
>> Something tells me that Jerome was far too insightful not to notice.
>> Salinger's own attraction to Catholicism seems to have come from Sylvia.
>> Before that we know that he lived in the Jewish Ghetto in Vienna and
>> escaped the German invasion by all of two weeks. Those he lived with were
>> murdered at Mauthausen. And yet, Salinger granted a certain humanity to a
>> Gestapo officer in his story re-telling those events. And I think that's
>> the point. Salinger is against labels. Labels only serve to disassociate us
>> from guilt in which we rightfully share. Us and them. Isn't it all "us" to
>> Salinger? And that's all you've been doing for the past two days, labeling
>> things that should never be labeled.
>> 
>> 
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