James Salter's "Light Years" by Begoña Rodríguez

James Salter's novel “Light Years” 

in Adam Rapp´s play 

“The Sound Inside”

A Review by Begoña Rodríguez Varela

Source for photo here

A priori, James Salter´s novel´s title “Light years” brings to mind a time of intense happiness, a time when everything ran smoothly and looked bright. In fact, Vedra , the female protagonist of the acclaimed novel , is a handsome mysterious woman married to an architect ,Viri, and , seemingly, lives a gilded life. However, those shiny appearances contrast with frustrated ambitions and enervated passions. Also, the prospect that aging or a deadly disease may take one’s life in an instant leads them to make wrong decisions ….or not.

“All that glitters is not gold.” True. As the story unfolds, the initial picture of their idyllic life with their two children in a Victorian house by the Hudson river, where they host candle-lit parties and entertain very interesting friends, turns out to be fake. They are not happy together and, besides, they have love affairs. Interestingly enough, the characters appear to be performing on a revolving stage. We can see what their friends ignore. An upper middle class cultivated couple who think life is richer than what they have but lack that clear-sightedness to know exactly what they are looking for.

Contrary to what is expected, it is not adultery that puts an end to their marriage but the death of someone close to them. Then, Vedra decides to travel to Europe with the intention of becoming an actress while Viri , her ex husband, is much appreciated by his new colleagues in an Italian Architecture Studio and marries again..Deep inside frustration and depression creep in, though. Insightful snapshots of a Polaroid camera.

Indeed, Salter´s mastery of the language is shown in his storytelling , the lyrical descriptions of places and, above all, the dialogues, which give a real portrait of the characters.Like in Pinter's theatre, they show the unsatisfied and unsatisfying desire to find haven. A haven which cannot be found in the material, money or sex. Where else can they turn to, then? Maybe to “The Sound Inside.”

It is what Bella Baird in Adam Rapp´s groundbreaking play does, after learning she has got cancer. Initially, Bella, a Yale professor of Creative Writing and author of an unsuccessful novel, prefers Literature to real people. The power of intellect, the intense connection between the writer and reader is key in her life until her mother´s death, her deadly disease and the arrival of a brilliant student trigger a change of mind.

Life is absurd. Can Art, Literature, Theatre and Architecture make life meaningful? Is it professional excellence or is it the connection and real bond with special people that make our lives worthwhile?

Ironically, Viri and Vedra realize, at the end of their lives, that only the time spent with their children gave them some comfort, some happiness . Thereby, Viri regrets having sold their Victorian house by the Hudson river and comes back there after Vedra’s funeral. After all, it is this old house that conjures up pleasant memories of past light years.

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D.Salinger

 “Growing Pains” in J.D.Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”

Source: here

Holden Caulfield ushers us into the story of his life: “If you want to hear about it” no problem”, but warns that he will not follow the line of that “David Copperfield’s kind of crap.”

Having a look at the first chapter of Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield,” a first-person narrator details the precise hour of his birth, day, and circumstances: Friday, midnight, dispossessed, and with a caul that was bid for. Begoña brought the interesting meaning of “caul” a membrane that covers the newborn’s face and body, a case occurring once in 80, 000 births. A symbol for protection? The sage ladies have prophesied David’s unlucky destiny as well as his gift to see ghosts and spirits, a flair all “unlucky children” have according to David. 

Caulfield’s narrative does not deviate from David Copperfield’s. His name evokes the “caul” / David Copperfield’s protecting membrane. He chases the ghost of his brother Allie and the ghost of his bygone childhood to face the “pains of growing.” And we are certainly given “oodles” (to follow the language game) of factual information about him as well: he attends expensive schools; has three siblings, Phoebe, Allie who died, and D.B., a writer he says has prostituted himself working for Hollywood.  He comes from a well off family and his granny has lost it giving him money for his birthday more than once a year. His father works as a lawyer, and his mum seems to suffer from a nervous condition.  He wears a red hunting hat, and has been "axed" from some phony schools.

He initiates his ritual into adulthood on a Friday / weekend in a Dantesque (metaphor owned to Mónica) and Joycean perambulation through the streets of New York after being “axed” (expelled from) his phony school “Pencey,” to finally reach his parents’ home, his return to his Itaca. A teenage sulking and nonconformist tone pervades the whole novel passing harsh and vitriolic criticism on the world he evidences. Traumatic experiences, beatings, unrequited love, unfairness, physical and moral abuse, and social double standards are some of the hurdles he must overcome. He unquestioningly states that the only thing he would like is to catch the children in the rye, to save them from falling into the precipice as Robert Burns poem recounts, yet, Burns's poem has sexual undertones that infer the danger might go deeper.

Where do the ducks go when the lake freezes? He questions. Sonia highlighted very interestingly that Holden appears towards the end of the novel, sitting by the empty frozen lake, on the brink of pneumonia.  This idea that frantically chases Caulden reminisces Yeats’ “The Wild Swans at Coole” (click here to read the poem) as a symbol of what is gone, and changed. Unlike the avian flock, time freezes and perpetuates in museums within their glass cases: the Indian natives are crystallized in a moment, but Holden thinks we are never the same person twice.

The relentless Heraclitean loop of time spares no child, a truth reflected in the narrative through Phoebe, who embodies the emblems of Caulfield—a hunting-red hat perched on her head and a suitcase in hand—when they agree to meet at the museum. Caulfield muses that time seems to freeze in museums, yet the observer is never the same when gazing upon the exhibits, and growing pains.

“I took my old hunting hat out of my pocket while I walked, and put it on. I knew I wouldn't meet anybody that knew me, and it was pretty damp out. I kept walking and walking, and I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the way I used to. I thought about how she'd see the same stuff I used to see, and how she'd be different every time she saw it. It didn't exactly depress me to think about it, but it didn't make me feel gay as hell, either. Certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway. Anyway, I kept thinking about all that while I walked. “ (Chapter 16)