[Bananafish] Re: Geismar

[The Mad Hatter]

oh how i'm starting to adore this source citation and blatant name dropping 
;)
so, let me get this straight..are we doubting salingers' irish roots too? at 
the end of all this somebody is going to say Mr.JD Salinger was from the 
southern tip of italy and that Doris' fairness is due to the Norman invasion 
of Sicily too long ago to remeber...and somebody is going to say that their 
Aunt Giuseppina can testify.
when there is enough tall tale telling, lethally mixed with faculty hallway 
gossip, then this is what you get...salinger is the mixed breed and confused 
upper west side kid that makes his being a new yorker more authentic...which 
makes his characters more authentic...which surely makes him sicilian :P
V.


>From: "Kenneth" <kenny2 at verizon.net>
>Reply-To: bananafish list <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
>To: <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
>Subject: [Bananafish] Re: Geismar
>Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 18:59:02 -0400
>
>Okay fine. Let's label. I'll start with Geismar. And I'll cite my sources, 
>too.
>Geismer argues that:
>"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."
>Now, I don't know about you, but Jillich doesn't sound particularly Irish 
>to me.That's not to say that Salinger's ancestors weren't. Members of the 
>Salinger family have told me that his mother was considered by them to 
>"look like a real Irisher" because she was freckled and had red hair. 
>However, she was born in Iowa as evidenced by her birth certificate, which 
>never even mentions the name Marie. The simple fact that Geismer misreports 
>these little facts should add a healthy dose of skepticism to anyone 
>considering his more sweeping assumptions.
>Someone has told tales here - and worse yet - someone else has repeated 
>them.
>
>Mike, the YMCA did run McBurney while Salinger was enrolled. But then 
>again, Valley Forge and Ursinus weren't exactly yeshivas when Salinger 
>attended either. Who conducted the enrollment interview at Valley Forge? 
>The chaplin did. No wonder Sol stayed home and sent his wife instead.
>
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