J.D. Salinger in Purgatory (Political Cartoon)

The San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | 01-29-2010 | Steve Breen

[DogByte6RER]

Oh, the irony!

[Ronin]

I struggled through “Catcher in the Rye” one time about 30 years ago and wondered what the heck all the fuss was about.

It ranged between utterly incomprehensible to totally boring.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Shouldn’t them “angels” be teenage boys ?

[GOP_Party_Animal]

I read it in high school and again at 29 years. What an absolute waste of time. Another one of those books that’s a “classic” merely because everyone says so.

[MinorityRepublican]

I read it for fun when I was in college and it’s one of my favorite books. Maybe you should try reading it again. You might like it this time.

[sockmonkey]

I read it because everyone was all atwitter about it being in our middle school library. I too, thought it was boring, and I thought the writer must really be a boring guy.

[sionnsar]

I struggled through “Catcher in the Rye” one time about 30 years ago and wondered what the heck all the fuss was about. It ranged between utterly incomprehensible to totally boring.

Never read it, but I guess you're not the right one to ask... *\;-)

[mad_as_he$$]

I will read it again after I finish Dune. Not.

[Glenn]

It ranged between utterly incomprehensible to totally boring.

I was an English Lit major and Salinger was out of style in the early 70's. I finally read "Catcher" a few years ago. I can understand that it might have been a book that might have affected me a great deal more at 18. I certainly never had the skill to write its equal.

[Incorrigible]

Ha! I love Steve Breen’s cartoons.

[real saxophonist]

About all I ever got from that book was Caulfield’s ‘secret slob’ roommate, who had to shave twice; I’ve had to do that a few times.

[Porterville]

Great book. I really liked Franny and Zooey. The second half is excellent.

[wimpycat]

Me, too. I didn’t get it....oh, the teenaged preppie angst!

[FrdmLvr]

What’s it about?

[Gorzaloon]

I read it for fun when I was in college and it’s one of my favorite books. Maybe you should try reading it again. You might like it this time.

I have found this to be true, myself. For example, some of Swift's satire eluded me in high school. My wife told me she rediscovered Lewis Carroll.

The books must have changed, huh?

[Borges]

What was ‘incomprehensible’ about it? It’s written in very forthright prose.

[Borges]

It’s written from the point of view of a self obssesed adolescent. If you read Salinger’s short stories you’d see that it’s a ‘character’ nothing like Salinger himself.

[Borges]

It was a best seller upon release and became a classic because it appealed to multiple generations.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

It is highly over-rated.

The left is trying to tie the novel and Salinger to the beatnik and population-gap group of writers.

The truth is, for anyone who actually studies literature, he didn’t do anything all that original or great.

He was a good writer. He wrote a good rejecting-coming-of-age novel. That’s about the extent of it.

[Borges]

Salinger had a huge effect on the architecture of the modern short story. They're very subtle and are can hinge on something as little as a single italized word.