J. D. Salinger

We have touched upon Salinger's war experiences before, but I thought this might be a deeper cut into that experience.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

He served three years on or near the front lines in some of the deadliest campaigns of the Second World War. Rising from private to staff sergeant in the 12th Infantry Regiment, Salinger was part of the D-Day landing at Utah Beach, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and the horrific debacle of the Hurtgen Forest. In winter combat he survived in foxholes filled with icy water, and in the spring of 1945 he was among the first to “liberate” Dachau and other Nazi death camps, later remarking to his daughter: “You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live.” In July ’45 he spent time in a hospital in Nuremburg, exhausted and, he said, “despondent.” Upon being honorably discharged, Salinger had never missed a day of service.

-- Ross Posnock, "The Salinger Riddle" at Public Books.org

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Shelby Foote

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

INTERVIEWER

Which comes first, character or plot?

FOOTE

Character comes first. I separate the mass of novels into good and bad. A good book could be described as one about a man who, in a situation, does such and such. A bad book is about a situation in which a man does such and such. In other words, plot ought to grow out of character. You don’t have to make up a plot. You have to have a person and place him in a situation and a plot starts happening. When you take a person like Harley Drew in "Love In a Dry Season" and you introduce him into a Mississippi town, things are going to start happening. That’s the way it should be, it seems to me.

-- Shelby Foote at The Paris Review

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I imagine that character is indeed the key, but I also incline toward a deterministic/fatalistic universe, so that part of the power of a story is how a character we come to identify with or appreciate is bound by the circumstances in which he finds himself ensconced. The world is bigger than the best of us. A great story brings home this tragedy of the human condition.

Friday

A slow, gently rain throughout this Friday. Very autumnal. It is my kind of day, but it is a little hard on the cats, though they have yet to become restless and yowling, but I am sure this is coming soon enough, probably tonight.

Louise Gluck

“The soul is silent.
If it speaks at all
it speaks in dreams.”

-- Louise Glück, from “Child Crying Out”