[Bananafish] Salinger...Kafka and his times (On the flightline in the Red Zone)

[Yocum, Daniel R Civ 21 CES/CEOE]

 Kafka was not a contemporary rebel against his times like the artist
and authors of his day.  Kafka did not declare himself through his style
or content as an outsider attacking the established, rather he is the
insider, a cog in the machine that is different, that doesn't quite fit.
He is not the alien invading organism wreaking havoc on the host, rather
he is the cancerous cell that is trying to function properly in its
place but cannot due to its nature granted by the fate of its birth.

Salinger in his own ill-fitted way (to society) is essentially the same.

Since childhood I have examined the mundane furniture of my environment
during times of inactivity.  I have always imagined Seymour's childhood
to be no different.  The angularity of a tiny pebble, the color
gradations on the stem of a weed, the length of a small beetles antennae
compared to his legs were never profound but a person, if not careful,
could live their whole life surrounded by these details in ignorance.
All the world's sharpness worn down into vague smoothness, a blandness
of monotony.

Daniel