Zen and the Art of the Glass Family in J.D. Salinger’s Short Stories

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} While J.D.Salinger is best known for his 1951 classic The Catcher in the Rye , hisown favorite works center on a family of brilliant, reclusive, unorthodoxformer child prodigies known as the Glasses. (Think Royal Tenenbaums, only withvaudeville performers for parents.) Through these short stories, Salinger notonly fleshes out his most cherished creations, but also elaborates on hisrelationship with Zen Buddhism, which he studied for decades. Following thesestories through the years demonstrates a gradual refinement in Salinger’sapproach to spirituality, which transitions from being highly physical tohighly abstract.   In “APerfect Day for Bananafish,” which was first published in 1948, Salingerintroduces Seymour Glass, the oldest and most likeable of the Glass siblings.While relaxing on a Florida beach for hishoneymoon, Seymour befriends a young girl named Sybil, whom he entertains with jokes,conversation, and good ol’ fashioned frolicking. On their last day together, Seymour tells her a storyabout a fantastical, greedy creature called a “bananafish” that lives (in apineapple?) under the sea. As the story goes, these fish swim into holes, stuffthemselves silly with bananas until they’re too big to escape, and tragicallydie of “banana fever.” An effective tale for endearing oneself to a four-yearold, yes, but the fact that Seymour then goes back to his hotel and shootshimself gives us a bit more pause for thought than if the day ended with, say,a picnic.   While theend of A PerfectDay for Bananafish is undeniably jarring, one interpretation of Seymour ’s bananafish story which seems to clarify mattersis that it’s an allegory for the rampant post-WWII consumerism to which Seymour is so spirituallyopposed. And when Sybil happily exclaims that she does, indeed, see abananafish in the water, Seymour has an epiphany that he IS the bananafish (goo goo g’joob); realizing that heis just as caught up in the physical world as the next guy, he goes back to hisfancy hotel resort to take his own life. What remains open to debate is whetherhis death represents succumbing to a symbolic banana fever or taking theultimate stand against the material world by leaving it.   When Franny and Zooey waspublished in 1961, Salinger’s spiritual interests figured into his writing muchmore obviously than in Bananafish, but less viscerally. “Franny” chronicles aspiritually-turbulent weekend with Seymour ’syoungest sibling, Franny, who, like Seymour ,wants to completely redefine her relationship with the physical world. Inspiredby a nineteenth-century religious text, Franny loses interest in her studies,her boyfriend, and her basic survival instinct, eventually passing out due tolack of food. This “break” from the physical echoes Seymour ’s death some years earlier, though toa much lesser extreme.   In “Zooey,”Salinger’s exploration of spirituality becomes still more intangible. After herdramatic fainting spell, Franny returns home in hysterics and refuses to goback to college. Thanks to her older brother Zooey, however, she comes to aplace of true clarity: Zooey not only points out her self-righteousness inmaking a dramatic performance of what should be a deeply personal experience,but also reminds her to appreciate the sanctity of everything around her –including ma’s “consecrated chicken soup” – instead of searching for it in themountaintops.     By the timeSalinger published RaiseHigh the Roof Beam, Carpenter sand Seymour: an Introduction in 1963, hisliterary approach to Zen Buddhism had become extremely abstract. “Raise Highthe Roof Beam, Carpenters” attempts to recount the day of Seymour ’s wedding party as narrated by hislittle brother, Buddy. “Seymour: an Introduction,” however, tackles the muchmore demanding challenge of explaining Seymour himself – not for the reader’sbenefit, but for Buddy’s own. In this sense, the act of writing becomes adiscovery process for not only Buddy, but also the reader, whose task it is tofigure out just what the hell Buddy is talking about.   Withcriticisms of being pretentious, showy, and “intolerably dull,” it’s difficultat first to see how “ Seymour :an Introduction” is supposed to convey an advanced level of clarity in theoverall spiritual trajectory of the Glass novellas. What some people don’tknow, however, is that Salinger is playing with the idea of the Zen koan, ariddle that must be understood spiritually rather than cerebrally (see also:one hand clapping). Just think back on Seymour ’sadvice that Buddy “try not aiming so much” in a game of marbles; after all, “Ifyou hit when you aim for it, it’ll just be luck.” Whether this is a cleverlyemployed literary strategy or simply a convenient out for bad writing remains amatter of personal interpretation.

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