Posted on 10/23/2004 6:55:30 AM PDT by jalisco555
Precisely how old I was when I first read "The Catcher in the Rye," I cannot recall. When it was published, in 1951, I was 12 years old, and thus may have been a trifle young for it. Within the next two or three years, though, I was on a forced march through a couple of schools similar to Pencey Prep, from which J.D. Salinger's 16-year-old protagonist Holden Caulfield is dismissed as the novel begins, and I was an unhappy camper; what I had heard about "The Catcher in the Rye" surely convinced me that Caulfield was a kindred spirit.
By then "The Catcher in the Rye" was already well on the way to the status it has long enjoyed as an essential document of American adolescence -- the novel that every high school English teacher reflexively puts on every summer reading list -- but I couldn't see what all the excitement was about. I shared Caulfield's contempt for "phonies" as well as his sense of being different and his loneliness, but he seemed to me just about as phony as those he criticized as well as an unregenerate whiner and egotist. It was easy enough to identify with his adolescent angst, but his puerile attitudinizing was something else altogether.
That was then. This is half a century later. "The Catcher in the Rye" is now, you'll be told just about anywhere you ask, an "American classic," right up there with the book that was published the following year, Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." They are two of the most durable and beloved books in American literature and, by any reasonable critical standard, two of the worst. Rereading "The Catcher in the Rye" after all those years was almost literally a painful experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Dialog---yes, I've always wondered why he never wrote a play.
Writers, musicians, artists, etc. are self-absorbed by both habit and natural inclination. Luckily, they are just a small segment of the general population.
My favourite Hemingway work is "A Farewell to Arms". I've never understood the fixation on J.D. Salinger however - A Catcher in the Rye isn't all that good.
Dare I suggest it would be more productive to read H.P. Lovecraft? ;)
Regards, Ivan
For short stories go to Checkov
I've never read any Hemingway other than "The Old Man and the Sea". We were actually forced to read that book cover to cover in class while the teacher watched us, than write an essay about it for homework. I was so angry that I've never been able to bring myself to read any other Hemingway. I know I should get over this but I haven't been able to.
Yeah, Checkov is good. But I read the stuff and I keep thinking, Yeah, he's doing this, and this, and this. And from a technical aspect, it's great. Brilliant stuff. But, to admit a shortcoming, I never really loved a book that wasn't written by an American.
I couldn't stand CITR, but you're absolutely right, it started a whole new and repulsive genre.
When kids are at their most susceptible (junior high school age), teachers urge them to read these horrible stories where everybody in the family seems to be an alcholic, an incest victim, a jailbird, etc., with a whiny heroine who sits around and feels sorry for herself. And this Jerry Springer vision of the universe is pushed as being a reflection of normal everyday life. No wonder many kids seem to be jaded and cynical by the age of 15 now.
More than a few, I'd bet.
The Outsiders is one of the books that kids are req'd to read these days. It's sort of ''catcheresque'' but nowhere near as bad as catcher--which isn't to say that I enjoyed reading it, either.
Tbe best of Hemingway IMHO, in order:
1. For Whom the Bell Tolls
2. A Farewell to Arms
3. The Sun Also Rises
I enjoyed his short story collections too.
My life was formed by my 5th grade english teacher, Mr Cockey (and yes we had fun with that) who assigned these books for the year: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge. Pretty heady stuff for 10 year olds and I thank him for it. This was in a public elementary school in Md.
You're almost right. Teachers force these books down kids' throats as "literature" and it lowers their expectations of what's possible with the written word for life. Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was shocked when he learned his book was being taught in public schools. He said, "Nest isn't even a pimple on the a@@ of American literature. They should be reading Moby Dick!"
In high school, my teacher assigned books like Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
Pretty much have to agree. It's in my Top 5 for sure.
What are the other four? I'm begging!
I guess I'll have to read it to find out what all the fuss is about. Don't know how I got to age 51 without having done so, but I guess I was never in a 'rebellious' enough frame of mind.
I suspect Catcher made a huge impact on Kerry. Count how many times a day he rails against his foes as phonies. (Talk about projection!)
Phony was my favorite word, too, after I read the book. But then I turned 14.
Theory on left vs. Right---Right --- individualism without the self-centeredness creating a strong community of commited moral people. Left-----groupism feeding on victimization and self-pity leading to social decay. Just a thought.
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