Thanks to L. Helm and D. McEvoy for their comments. Helm writes: “Salinger hid
from fame once he had achieved it. Salinger was a great admirer of Hemingway,
called himself Hemingway’s chief fan … And Hemingway … thought that celebrity
was a great curse.”
Interesting. Of course, one may want to distinguish between ‘fame’ and
‘celebrity,’ but I see what I say. I am always reminded of a line by Cecil Vyse
(Sir Cecil Vyse) in “A Room with a View,” as played by Daniel Day Lewis. He is
asked by a member of the bourgeoisie. “And what is your profession?” “Why, I
don’t have a profession. I’m a gentleman.” (Or perhaps he just said, “I don’t
have a profession,” with the attending implicature, “I’m a gentleman.”). It may
be argued that the ‘profession’ of both Salinger and Hemingway was that of an
‘author,’ ‘writer,’ ‘novelist,’ what have you, and why they may despise fame
and celebrity, there is a point where this fame and celebrity may come in handy
for what they are doing – in terms of sales, say!
Helm: “I thought for a long time that if I got a PhD an entered academia I
could continue doing what I enjoyed…”
I recently wrote a piece “Grice’s Academy” – which of course should have been
“Grice’s Academia”. Philosophy may be different from what Salinger and
Hemingway do, but I don’t see them as ‘publishing or perishing’. One has to
think in terms of _academia_ *then,* i.e. in Salinger’s days, say. This film,
“Rebel in the Rye,” has academia (Columbia, specifically) in the person of this
mentor Salinger had – Salinger attended a class at Columbia, but was more
interested in his mentor’s capacity as ‘editor’, since it was through this
mentor that he got his first short story ‘published.’ Only to say, years later,
that he did not enjoy publishing!
Helm: “I was very fast as it turned out, faster than my coworkers so I always
had some time to write.”
This reminds me of J. L. Borges, who used to work at a local library in Buenos
Aires, and was proud, in later years, to reminisce how fast he was – “I did all
my chores in an hour or so, and then moved to the rooftop, and write my short
stories.”
“[Later, o]ne of my coworkers was Lee Griffith who had a Master’s Degree from
Duke
University in English. His interest was the criticism of poetry, and since I
had begun to write I welcomed his comments.”
I suppose this connects to Salinger’s relationship with this mentor at
Columbia. Salinger also developed some sort of friendship with the editor of
“The New Yorker,” and it is interesting that, to avoid ‘celebrity,’ they would
gather in some obscure hotel in New York, rather than the editor’s usual place
at the Algonquin!
“Over time [Griffith] thought I wrote better and better until he thought I was
writing the occasional
excellent poem. … [T]hen the question is often asked, ‘why are you doing it?’
And, ‘don’t you want to publish and be famous?’”
This reminds me of G. J. Warnock in “Saturday Mornings.” This is a reminiscence
of his days at Oxford back in the day, with Grice – c. 1946-1967. “It is
different NOW – where the situation is so competitive, but back then we were
parochial and proud of it. We never thought of PUBLISHING.” Revising Grice’s
career I see that most of his oeuvre is the result of some public lecture he
had to deliver (and lecturing was agony to him) for the Aristotelian Society,
or the result of some seminar at Oxford, where he had studied --. But the
‘publish or perish’ disjunction was NOT the rule in Grice’s Oxford. When he
moved to UC/Berkeley, he kept that cavalier attitude – and was more interested
in his ‘symposia’ or ‘salons’ at his house than grading students!
Helm: “To the first [“Why do you do this?”] I answer not quite what Salinger
wrote in his little poem, that I feel it is something “I ought to be doing.”
In using the words “feel” and “ought” I admit that something has gone on in my
history to make this a true statement. And while I doubt that I could explain
this matter with very much accuracy, it is nevertheless something that has
happened. Now, when I am doing a lot of writing I would call “good,” I feel
that I am doing what I ought to be doing. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that
this make me happy, but I will say that I feel guilty if I go too long without
doing it.”
I see what you mean. I like the qualification of ‘feel’ prefacing the Kantian
‘ought’! Kant had a problem with ‘happiness’ (deontological ethics has, as
opposed to teleological ethics) and Grice knew well about this (He has an essay
on “Happiness,” where he wonders whether from a Kantian ‘ought,’ (“ought to be
happy”), one can turn a conditional maxim into the categorical imperative that
ruled his ethics.
Helm: “Then as to FAME [emphasis mine – Speranza], I wouldn’t be able to
compromise sufficiently to get
any even if I wanted some. And if some hypothetical person were to steal my
poetry and publish it using my name thus making me famous without my
permission, I would use my ill-gotten gains to hide even more thoroughly than
J. D. did.”
Fun! Aristotle (whom Grice knew by heart since his Corpus Christi days – under
Hardie) has a lot to say about this concept – pretty Greek – of ‘fame’ in
“Nichomachean Ethics.” And he relates it to happiness. It always struck me
that, for Aristotle, happiness may involve something like the afterlife, in
terms of fame, as it were (The Greek word, of course, is aequivocal, since it
is almost like ‘ta legomena’, ‘things said’ – that is what ‘fame’ *means*
etymologically). Aristotle is thinking of someone who dies a happy person, but
then, infame ensues – something is discovered about this person, or one of his
descendants becomes infamous. And Aristotle makes a point that this may have a
direct effect on the thus far alleged ‘happy person.’ So one has to be careful.
In a way, Salinger’s Cornish, in New Hampshire, is not much different from
Benson’s Brooklin in Maine – and both were sort of recluse. I would hope that
Salinger ENJOYED his days at Cornish, i.e. that he did not just chose Cornish
to HIDE. He having been brought up on Park Avenue in Manhattan, it was a bit
like “Green Acres” for him, I suppose. And there is something majestic about
‘Cornish’. It’s not CornWALL – merely CornISH. I wish I had “A guide to the
toponymy of New Hampshire” to hand – if there is one!
Cheers,
Speranza
