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1adkrim
To Salinger readers -- has anyone else read his long, magazine only final story, Hapworth ? I thought, as his last published piece, it was incredible. I believe it still holds the record as the longest story ever published in "The New Yorker". I think, as a pure writer, and as a wit, Salinger is hard to beat. And then, with his personal mythology so full blown, well, it's an amazing piece. I guess the only way to get it now is in The Complete New Yorker. Thoughts on it?
2barney67
I read Hapworth a long time ago. I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed.
The story revealed that Salinger had apparently become concerned exclusively with the Glass family, and with the saintly Seymour in particular. "Seymour: An Introduction" was an indication of where Hapworth was headed. Salinger's fictional world was becoming increasingly insular and claustrophobic, full of interior monologues, letters, diary entries, and in Hapworth, simply a list of books to read. Salinger, in his fiction, was losing contact with the world.
It doesn't surprise me that this was the last published piece. Although I know Salinger has several manuscripts unpublished, I can't help wondering whether they are echoes of Hapworth, i.e. increasingly mystical, solipsistic, and unreadable.
Hapworth was further proof to me that Salinger got lost in the labyrinth of his own head and literary devices.
The story revealed that Salinger had apparently become concerned exclusively with the Glass family, and with the saintly Seymour in particular. "Seymour: An Introduction" was an indication of where Hapworth was headed. Salinger's fictional world was becoming increasingly insular and claustrophobic, full of interior monologues, letters, diary entries, and in Hapworth, simply a list of books to read. Salinger, in his fiction, was losing contact with the world.
It doesn't surprise me that this was the last published piece. Although I know Salinger has several manuscripts unpublished, I can't help wondering whether they are echoes of Hapworth, i.e. increasingly mystical, solipsistic, and unreadable.
Hapworth was further proof to me that Salinger got lost in the labyrinth of his own head and literary devices.
3adkrim
i'd like to read it again. the navel gazing, it struck me as a kind of persian miniature, zen koan (no huge surprise there) but, the minimalism of it, i wonder if it holds up. maybe i'm putting too much hope in salinger as an innovator, but i think he was mining his own kind of modernism out of a very personal cave. maybe i'm wrong. i'll take another look. (lots of great writers seem to go a little wonky at the end of their careers -- at least tolstoy seemed to...) anyway, thanks for joining in on the group.
