(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
So what led me recently to reading a monthly superhero comic book again for literally the first time in decades? Two simultaneous events, really: first,I mentioned here recently how I've decided to read all 300 issues of DC Vertigo's legendary Hellblazer that got made before its "cancellation," although it's not really being cancelled but rather just "rebooted," that in fact the entire shared DC Universe recently got completely set back to zero by the company, both in an attempt to simplify their titles' byzantine continuance problems and in an attempt to drum up a little publicity, which has also had me wondering lately what some of these post-reboot "New 52" titles are actually like; and right at the same time, I heard a fascinating and entertaining interview with one of these New 52 authors, Batman's Scott Snyder, on Kevin Smith's surprisingly riveting "Fatman on Batman" podcast, which got me really curious to specifically read the Batman stories that have come out since the reboot. And so I picked up the two graphic novels comprising the first 12-issue story arc, The Court of Owls and The City of Owls, which were…well, pretty much exactly what I was expecting -- good for what they are, but ultimately designed to primarily appeal to teenage boys, exactly as superhero comics have done since they were invented. So as such, then, most adult readers will find this grand conspiracy story (in which it's revealed that a secret society has actually ruled Gotham since its beginning, right under the nose of Batman without him ever having a clue, which takes him most of these twelve issues to process) to pack as much punch as a well-done YA novel, but not really enough to satisfy most grown-ups. And I have to confess, that's kind of refreshing, in the same kind of way it's been recently as well to realize that my friend's nine-year-old sons are obsessed with Star Wars: The Clone Wars in a way that my middle-aged brain will never understand; that after several decades where adults' and children's artistic choices were unhealthily mingled into this giant communal man-child pop-culture stew, it's nice to see things starting to go back to the way they've always been before Generation X, where we as a culture clearly understand that stories about laser guns and masked crime fighters are supposed to appeal primarily to teenagers and younger. I'm not saying a grown-up can't guiltily enjoy a superhero story now and again, just that I'm glad to check in with these monthly comics for the first time in a long time and see that they're back to being primarily geared towards the "whizz-bang-crash" crowd; and that combined with the flabbergasting increase in quality, regarding both production and drawing style, makes these New 52 Batmans a real winner for parents who want to pick up something smart and lively for their preteen sons, on par with the rebooted Doctor Who in terms of both intelligence and legitimate scares but undeniably made with kids in mind.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
So what led me recently to reading a monthly superhero comic book again for literally the first time in decades? Two simultaneous events, really: first,I mentioned here recently how I've decided to read all 300 issues of DC Vertigo's legendary Hellblazer that got made before its "cancellation," although it's not really being cancelled but rather just "rebooted," that in fact the entire shared DC Universe recently got completely set back to zero by the company, both in an attempt to simplify their titles' byzantine continuance problems and in an attempt to drum up a little publicity, which has also had me wondering lately what some of these post-reboot "New 52" titles are actually like; and right at the same time, I heard a fascinating and entertaining interview with one of these New 52 authors, Batman's Scott Snyder, on Kevin Smith's surprisingly riveting "Fatman on Batman" podcast, which got me really curious to specifically read the Batman stories that have come out since the reboot. And so I picked up the two graphic novels comprising the first 12-issue story arc, The Court of Owls and The City of Owls, which were…well, pretty much exactly what I was expecting -- good for what they are, but ultimately designed to primarily appeal to teenage boys, exactly as superhero comics have done since they were invented. So as such, then, most adult readers will find this grand conspiracy story (in which it's revealed that a secret society has actually ruled Gotham since its beginning, right under the nose of Batman without him ever having a clue, which takes him most of these twelve issues to process) to pack as much punch as a well-done YA novel, but not really enough to satisfy most grown-ups. And I have to confess, that's kind of refreshing, in the same kind of way it's been recently as well to realize that my friend's nine-year-old sons are obsessed with Star Wars: The Clone Wars in a way that my middle-aged brain will never understand; that after several decades where adults' and children's artistic choices were unhealthily mingled into this giant communal man-child pop-culture stew, it's nice to see things starting to go back to the way they've always been before Generation X, where we as a culture clearly understand that stories about laser guns and masked crime fighters are supposed to appeal primarily to teenagers and younger. I'm not saying a grown-up can't guiltily enjoy a superhero story now and again, just that I'm glad to check in with these monthly comics for the first time in a long time and see that they're back to being primarily geared towards the "whizz-bang-crash" crowd; and that combined with the flabbergasting increase in quality, regarding both production and drawing style, makes these New 52 Batmans a real winner for parents who want to pick up something smart and lively for their preteen sons, on par with the rebooted Doctor Who in terms of both intelligence and legitimate scares but undeniably made with kids in mind.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this review, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
The whole reason I decided to review this book in the first place is because of receiving a general-interest email about it from digital ARC service NetGalley.com, promising me that it will be the "most talked-about book of this fall" that I "am guaranteed to love;" and coming as this did from an apparently objective organization like the NetGalley staff, I made the foolish mistake of believing them, and signing up for a review copy. But alas, this turned out to be a sneaky paid advertisement that was never clearly labeled as such, and the book itself turns out to be a largely unreadable piece of Young Adult chick-lit crap, a ridiculously unrealistic soapy melodrama about a bad-boy undergraduate who literally pays his tuition through participating in an illegal fight club in his small genial college town (like, OMG!), and the intolerably idiotic undergraduate girl who falls for him despite her best intentions not to (like, LOL!); and I have to confess that I barely made it through even fifty pages of this nadir of contemporary literature before giving up in angry disgust. NetGalley, if you want to avoid in the future having cynical middle-aged reviewers like me trashing the teenybopper books you've been paid to promote, you might want to be a little more selective and a lot more transparent about who you're recruiting; because I gotta say, this kind of sneaky carpet-bombing marketing bullsh-t doesn't sit well with me at all.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Regular readers know that I do not usually review Young Adult novels here; but I made an exception this month with the new Planesrunner, not just because it was specifically sent to me by the publishing company but because it's the YA debut of sci-fi veteran Ian McDonald, and I'm a big slavish fan of Ian McDonald. But alas, Ian McDonald or not, this action-adventure tale about multiple universes and a teen whose kidnapped dad gives him the key to unlocking it all is absolutely a YA product through and through, both for better and for worse; and so while actual teen readers may find this enjoyable (or may not -- like I said, I don't usually review YA novels), for actual grown-ups it leaves a lot to be desired, from a clunky plot to overly explanatory exposition, snotty teen characters that will make adults roll their eyes just as badly as real teens make them do, a reliance on a Cockney-like slang that's much more annoying than clever, and a lot more. (Plus, I have to confess that I'm already tired of the "teenage libertarian" theme that seems to so completely dominate YA novels by science-fiction authors, which is definitely the case here too; and, for a main character who's supposed to be a nerdy British Indian, I have to say that I was quite dismayed to see him portrayed on the front cover an awful lot like a hunky white guy. The effect is subtle enough in this case to save Pyr a public shaming; but I confess that this is a huge pet peeve of mine, when marketing executives at publishing companies take main protagonists of color and then "whitewash" them on the cover for an American audience.) Decent enough for what it is, grown-ups should nonetheless stay far clear from this literal definition of juvenilia.
Out of 10: 7.2, or 8.2 for Young Adult fans (less)
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
While this is far from a badly written book, I think that maybe Walter Greatshell's Mad Skills is perhaps a victim of mistaken categorization; because now that I've finished it, I find it hard to describe in any other way than as a Young Adult action-adventure version of Daniel Keyes' classic Flowers for Algernon, although it was promoted to me by the publishing company as a grown-up book for grown-up audiences. And so as an adult book, this simplistic novel leaves a lot to be desired, a sort of clunky tale of a brain-damaged girl turned into a supergenius through an experimental procedure after a bad accident, who comes to realize that it is merely a byproduct of a secret governmental/corporate plan to mentally control a docile population through innovative brain implants, with both a plotline and dialogue that feel much more often like they're plodding along instead of sailing or soaring; but if you instead assume that this was meant for teenage readers, nearly all of these things can be excused, with the manuscript suddenly much more on par with something like Scott Westerfield's hugely admired "Uglies" series. I've got another title from Greatshell in the pike as we speak, ready to be reviewed here later this year, and I'll be interested in seeing whether that one appeals more to adult readers, or whether Greatshell simply writes in a style more appropriate for a teen audience.
Out of 10: 7.2, or 8.2 for Young Adult fans (less)
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
Long before Scott McCloud became the guru of comics deconstruction with his wildly popular trilogy of nonfiction titles on the subject (1993's Understanding Comics, 2000's Reinventing Comics and 2006's Making Comics), he was the author of the late-'80s underground hit Zot!, an important transitional title between the daring but filthy work that mostly marked this industry in the '70s and the mainstreaming of indie comics in the '90s, but a title that had fallen into almost complete obscurity by our own times; so it's nice to see the almost complete run of the comic (minus its first ten crappy color "proto-issues") repackaged by Harper into a slick, hefty trade paperback, something that I feel deserves to happen to the early work of nearly every artist who manages to survive over the years, for posterity's sake if nothing else. Unfortunately, though, when McCloud mentions in the introduction how inspired he was by the then-unknown "manga" format from Japan (one of the very first American artists to be so, in fact), he doesn't mean the post-apocalyptic hard sci-fi wing of manga but rather the sappy, soap-operaish domestic dramas so loved by thirteen-year-old girls; and what starts as a fairly clever premise (the adventures of a do-gooder superhero in a parallel-universe New York perpetually stuck in Kennedy/Jetsons Late-Modernist shininess, and how this messes with the superhero's head when he visits our own run-down '80s Manhattan) devolves by its halfway point into an endless series of overly sentimental, overly earnest character studies about small-town New England, literally as if the creators of Superman suddenly decided one day to permanently saddle him in his Clark Kent persona, then make him a minor character in Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (yet another inspiration that McCloud specifically references in his introduction by name).
Now, to be fair, even McCloud himself acknowledges most of the weaknesses in Zot!, in the fascinating 2008 write-ups he did to accompany each issue; plus I always think it's fair to cut a well-known artist a lot of slack when looking back at their raw, early work, and especially any stuff they might've done for just a small audience back in their twenties, like is the case here. But still, it's important I think to acknowledge the problems this series has, and to let people know that they're not exactly going to be stumbling across some forgotten Postmodernist Watchmen masterpiece when picking this up, despite these issues coming out at the same time as Alan Moore's '80s classic and in the early episodes dealing lightly with the same "What Makes Superheroes Really Tick" themes. Fun to read if you have a random chance, and a book I'm glad at least exists, but not something I'd recommend going out of your way to procure.
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. Today's title is my sixth of the contemporary "superstar" young-adult (YA) books out there, a whole series of post-9/11 titles now in my reading list that have each sold millions of copies, usually without most of us adults being any the wiser; in particular it's the 2005 Printz-winning tragicomedy Looking for Alaska, by master of the character novel John Green, whose newer title An Abundance of Katherines has also been reviewed here in the past. And indeed, it's easy to see why those who read Alaska first are generally a bit disappointed by Katherines, despite it being great unto itself as well; because both books end up sharing many of the same traits (nerdy boy hero with weird linguistic obsession, who's also popular and gets sex regularly; stocky, brusque best friend who serves as the comic relief; bewitchingly complex and deeply flawed female love interest who generally drives everyone else crazy; gratuitous drinking, smoking and cursing), but with Alaska packing much more of a punch when it finally gets to its serious half.
See, it's about a group of friends at a small private boarding school in Alabama, one of those low-tier prep schools with only a regional reputation but is where all the rich kids in the surrounding towns are sent; and the first half is not much more than a comedic, laid-back look at the inconsequential ins-and-outs of their daily lives, socially centered around a precociously intelligent yet bit of a trainwreck girl named Alaska, who seems to always be coining all their inside jokes and planning all their clever pranks. But then about halfway through, the book takes a complete right turn (and I don't think this is a spoiler, in that the book itself states it nearly explicitly on the back cover), when Alaska drives drunk one night and dies in a suspicious auto accident; and that makes the second half of the book a much more somber and existential tale, as Alaska's friends grapple not only with her death but also such troubling questions as whether she actually committed suicide, and how responsible they are in her death for knowingly letting her drive drunk that night in the first place. In trademark Green fashion, then, all of these issues are handled with a surprising amount of gentle if not dark humor, and a kind of direct connection to the topsy-turvy emotions of teens that most of us adults have long forgotten; and that of course is a big part of what makes Green such a brilliant YA author, is precisely that he does remember all the subtle emotions of teens that most adults promptly force out of their memories after the end of puberty, which he then combines with plots so tight and dialogue so witty as to make Michael Chabon himself proud.
Green is easily my favorite of all the YA authors I've ever now read, and I will count myself lucky if I can put out books myself that are even half as good as his. I recommend either of the titles mentioned today, or of course his newest, Paper Towns, which I also plan on reviewing here in the future. (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. Today's title is my fifth of the contemporary "superstar" young-adult (YA) books out there, a whole series of post-9/11 titles now in my reading list that have each sold millions of copies, usually without most of us adults being any the wiser; in particular it's the 2005 science-fiction juggernaut Uglies, by an author named Scott Westerfeld who was already a famed writer of adult SF before penning this, and which in reality is merely part one of an insanely popular series currently four books long.
And man, it's easy to see why people go so nuts about this book once you read it yourself, because it's a stunner when compared to a lot of other YA novels out there -- much more sophisticated than the average teen book, presenting much more subversive material than normal, a post-apocalyptic morality tale that effortlessly blends far-future hard-science concepts with the reality of our current plastic-surgery, Paris Hilton, TMZ wasteland days. Taking place several hundred years after an unnamed apocalyptic event, Uglies imagines a new type of society all green and shiny, where cutting-edge science is used to create a self-sustaining metropolitan area that largely takes care of itself, leaving its inhabitants free to essentially party 24 hours a day; and in an effort to erase the looks-based biases and open racism of past civilization (which Westerfeld hints is what caused the unnamed apocalypse in the first place), at the age of 16 all citizens go through a complicated series of plastic surgeries so that every single person ends up looking like a gorgeous, golden-skinned supermodel. Such a society, then, breaks down into what they call "littlies" (small children), "uglies" (those going through puberty, and who live in lower-class barracks away from the main city), then "pretties" once coming of age, further broken down into categories of "young," "middle" and "old" pretties (each requiring a new round of surgeries).
Without going into too many specifics, then, the actual plot of Uglies sort of mirrors the classic '70s tale Logan's Run, the story of one 15-year-old ugly who has accidentally gotten wind about a supposed sanctuary of sorts, a semi-mythical community of non-ops who live as adult uglies out in the crumbling post-apocalyptic ruins of what sounds like might be San Francisco or perhaps Seattle. And that of course gets to the heart of this book's brilliance; because in a world full of environmentally-friendly, crime-free cities packed with supermodels, none of whom ever have to work a day in their life, why would one be complaining in the first place? Aren't we as a race ultimately striving for some kind of version of this right now, after all? And Westerfeld's answer, of course, is that it's a society without free will, a society that never grows or changes precisely because there is no pain or learning, no hard lessons and no maturation process, with the whole thing actually held together through much more nefarious means than the general population even realizes; there's a very good reason, after all, that these various post-apocalyptic "pretty" cities maintain no contact with each other, a very good reason that there's a whole secret wing of these societies acting as a shadow government of sorts, the various revelations concerning which make up the action-packed plotline of this book's second half.
Like Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, this is one of those books that liberal, intelligent parents are going to love seeing their teens get into; because ultimately this book preaches a great message that too few teens get told these days, that it's always better to think for yourself and make your own decisions, no matter how tempting a bland, comfortable, unthinking middle-class existence of television and partying might seem at times. It's a giant book, almost 500 pages, and so are all the sequels, making it a good challenge for most teenage readers, something that feels like a real accomplishment when finishing, and I have a feeling is eventually going to take on a revered, highly influential place in the minds of the current generation of youth, when thinking back on these times twenty or thirty years from now. That's a nice thing to imagine, frankly, that a book like this might have much more of a future sway over our current generation of youth than every celebrity trainwreck and embarrassing reality show added together. More books like these, please, YA industry, and a little less sexy vampires! (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. Today's title of course needs no introduction to most: it's after all part of the second most popular YA series on the planet behind Harry Potter, and what eventually let its author Stephanie Meyer break into the "50 Richest Artists in America" list in 2008, partly helped by a massive grassroots publicity campaign by her fellow Mormons, to help promote this book about teens where no one drinks, smokes, does drugs or has sex. And here's the big surprise -- it's not actually that bad, or at least in comparison to other Young Adult novels out there; and that of course is what has garnered it so much criticism, that millions of adults have now precisely treated and therefore judged it like one would an adult novel (the exact reason it became such a huge bestseller in the first place), and for the most part a YA novel will simply pale in comparison to just about any popular adult novel that exists, barring a few exceptions such as perhaps Sarah Dessen or John Green.
For those who don't know, the book is essentially "Jane Austen Meets Dracula," with Meyer using a whole series of clever gimmicks to recreate all the great elements of Austen's oppressive, mannered Georgian world in our postmodern, anything-goes times; set in a small town in the Pacific Northwest where everybody knows everybody else's business, like Austen's Northanger Abbey it features as our hero an impetuous, mistake-prone 17-year-old girl named Bella, with an overactive imagination and healthy disrespect for blind authority, as she slowly develops an obsession for a family of standoffish yet impossibly gorgeous siblings who attend the same school as her, and especially the brooding, Byronic oldest brother Edward, who is assigned as her lab partner in Chemistry and quickly develops an intense push/pull relationship with her. As the novel continues, then, and Bella discovers the truth about the mysterious Cullen family (SPOILER ALERT: they're vampires), again Meyer uses the milieu mostly for the Austenesque purpose of letting the two hold hands and make googly-eyes at each other for several hundred pages, until interrupted by a forced Act Three that feels arbitrary and tacked-on ("And then some random Bad Guy shows up and decides to kill Bella for no discernible reason"), as if someone had told Meyer that all vampire novels must end with an action scene, even though her whole point was to write a Regency-style love story.
I mean, yes, the whole thing is a silly mess at a lot of points; but I was fully expecting a book designed for overly emotional 14-year-old girls to seem like a silly mess to me, which is why I instead read it more for analytical reasons, to see if I could figure out why teenaged girls go so nuts over this book in the first place, in an attempt to perhaps help my own wannabe career as a YA author. And the fact is that it's very easy to see why teenaged girls go so crazy for this entire series, with Meyer smartly tapping into some universal truths about idealized female desire, which I'm sure is why so many millions of fully-grown adult females who should theoretically know better have responded so passionately to this too -- after all, Edward possesses the looks of a Roman statue and a gay man's appreciation for expensive clothes and classical music; is rich but artsy and disdainful of money; is ruled by dark emotions yet has a surprisingly easy-to-control handle over them; secretly follows her around so that he can miraculously save her from her own ineptitude at ridiculously convenient moments, yet never comes off like a stalker when doing so; never ever pressures her to have sex because his burning, overwhelming hunger for her would literally rip her apart if he ever acted on it; plus his sinewy, muscular body literally freaking sparkles when directly exposed to sunlight. So in other words, he's the exact portrait of a 14-year-old girl's idea of a perfect boyfriend, which like I said is also apparently the romantic ideal of millions of fully grown women who should know much better.
That's not such a terrible crime when all is said and done, which is why I didn't find the book all that bad despite its eyerolling nature; although admittedly feminists are going to have a field day over this book's overarching "Bachelor"esque message, that women are essentially terminal screw-ups whose lives will never be better until a dominating man they're kind of scared of majestically swoops in fairytale-style and rescues them. In any case, now that I've read it myself, it's easy to see why so many people have responded so intensely to it, and has definitely given me some tips as far as the struggle in my own life to write entertaining stories for young females. You already know whether you yourself are going to love or hate Twilight, and I urge you to listen to your gut when it comes to whether or not you should pick up a copy. (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. This is my first of the contemporary "superstar" young-adult (YA) books, a whole series of post-9/11 titles now in my reading list that have each sold millions of copies, usually without most of us adults being any the wiser; and indeed, after finishing it myself, I could easily see why John Green has in just the past few years rapidly grown into one of the most popular YA authors in history. And that's because this character-based relationship comedy and coming-of-age tale is literally as complicated and witty as any better-than-average adult novel out there, sort of a teen version of a Michael Chabon or David Foster Wallace book (complete with superfluous footnotes, no less), which of course is going to get eaten up by a crowd that's usually fed a steady stream of parent-friendly morality tales and vampire soap operas.
In fact, that's the best compliment I can give this novel, that it literally made me flash back to some of the deepest, most private moments I had in my own teen years (25 years ago now for me), moments I had completely forgotten about, a laser-precise look sometimes at the weird ways intelligence and naivety and hormones mix in the high-school years; and that's always a special and remarkable thing, when an adult author can tap back into those emotions as if they were there again, and especially astonishing when you add it to Green's natural mastery over plot, ultra-realistic dialogue, and creation of all kinds of fascinatingly unique elements while still adhering to the "rules" of YA fiction (like: find a plausible way to get rid of the adults as much as possible; be dark but not too dark; make the plot at least slightly more adventurous than most teens get a chance to experience in real life; examine sex mostly by way of examining sexual tension; etc). Green has a whole series of passionately loved character dramadies out now (to say nothing of the first project that got him a lot of notice, the million-person-watching "Brotherhood 2.0" online video experiment), and I'm highly looking forward now to reading more.
Additional thoughts, as far as my struggle to become a better YA author myself...
--So far in my research, this is the book I've most pictured as the kind of novel I myself will probably write; but that said, I happily admit that Green is a much better writer than I will ever be, which I actually find oddly inspirational for some reason, the fact that a guy this funny and smart is being so rewarded by his industry right now. (He's also a multiple award-winner, and the film rights to several of his books have now been purchased by Hollywood studios.) That's another big compliment I can give, that I really want Green to write a book for grown-ups now, so that an adult audience can also discover what a wonderful writer he is.
--For being a multiple award winner, I was surprised by how much subversive material there is in here: all the teens curse like sailors, most of them get drunk at one point or another without any repercussions, and there's even a scene where two teen boys come across another teen couple making love in a field completely naked, and end up watching them for a bit before making their presence known. I'm sure it's another reason why these books are so massively popular among teens themselves. Also, I was happily reminded while reading this that teens actually have a much more nuanced understanding of things like relationships than we tend to remember by the time we're in our forties; the characters seen here can get surprisingly jaded and adult in their observations about romance and the like. This is one of the nice things, of course, about a book like this becoming so popular, that it confirms that teen readers really are intimately connecting with the highly sophisticated writing style seen on display here. It's one of the things I'm starting to realize these days, that the entire YA industry is a much different thing than when I was a young adult myself in the early 1980s, and that the most popular YA novels out there (the ones specifically for ages 14 and up, that is) are routinely as large, complex and realistic as any adult book, just with teenage characters.
--Did I mention yet all the infinitely unique and utterly charming details that Green comes up with for this book, all while servicing the traditional blueprint for what a contemporary novel should contain? This is why he reminds me so much of the adult-lit author Michael Chabon, and especially that author's early hit Wonder Boys. I love how Green starts us out in Chicago, for example (in fact, just around the corner from where I live in real life), but somehow comes up with an entirely plausible way for our teen heroes to end up spending the rest of the novel in a tiny little hillbilly town in Tennessee, one that they just happened to randomly come across during an impromptu road trip. I love that the comic-relief best friend is an overweight slacker Muslim, filthy-mouthed and addicted to daytime television and who introduces himself to everyone with, "Hi, I'm not a terrorist." I love how the story ends up centering around a factory that makes the pull-out strings for tampons, and I love how that ends up providing this lovely, completely surprising, visually magical moment at the book's climax. I love how the main conceit is that our male hero has had 19 romantic relationships since the age of eight, and that every single one of them was with a girl named Katherine with a "K;" and I love how Green uses this quirky fact as an excuse for these long, (500) Days of Summer style reminiscences about them, all in the service of this science nerd trying throughout the course of the book to perfect a mathematical formula that can be used to predict the outcome of any new relationship. There's a hundred other details like these I could mention, but I won't.
--And finally, definitely one of the reasons Green has grown so absurdly popular is that he has a brilliant handle over teen stereotypes, and of all the massively complicated layers of personality that actually reside under that top stereotype in real life. Just to cite one example (and again, I could do more if I wanted), look at how our main female character Lindsey comes across at first as a typical redneck with too much makeup and who dates the town quarterback (literally); but how as we get to know her, we come to realize that she's actually an emotional chameleon, whose personality and even dialect changes radically based on who she's around; and how under that, there's actually a very rebellious creature who was once an angry junior-high goth; and how underneath all THAT, what really lurks is the heart of an intelligence-loving nerd, which is how it is that she and our nerdy male hero click so profoundly, despite the surface-level details of their lives being almost diametrically opposite. It's easy for adult readers to look at a character like Lindsey and imagine her as the sassy graphic-designer ingenue or cultishly loved punk-rock bassist she's fated to be; it's absolutely wonderful to watch Green so completely peg this type in the years before she grows into the person she was always meant to be. (And speaking of all this, that's the secret behind Green's miraculous feat of writing a relationship book that somehow appeals to boys as well: he makes the male hero an antisocial, book-obsessed former child prodigy who nonetheless has an insanely busy love life, manages to get the hot white-trash girl by the end, and actually beats up the town quarterback, a wish-fulfillment wet dream for nerdy boy book-lovers if I've ever heard of one.) (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. Today's title is my third of the contemporary "superstar" young-adult (YA) books out there, a whole series of post-9/11 titles now in my reading list that have each sold millions of copies, usually without most of us adults being any the wiser; in particular it's the 2007 outing by Laurie Halse Anderson, who's actually put out a whole string of award-nominated bestsellers and passionate teen favorites over the years. It's essentially a character drama about a formerly nerdy teenage boy, who decides at the end of his junior year to commit a major piece of vandalism as a way of acting out, which then earns him a summer of manual-labor community service after getting busted; this then turns him into a chiseled hardbody just in time for his senior year, which when added to his new "bad boy" status suddenly makes him the talk of the school, including an aggressive courtship by the empty-headed future sorority girl that he's had a crush on for years.
But things eventually turn disastrous, through a series of events that are best left a secret; the important point is that they trigger a whole series of very dark emotions in our hero Tyler, who then wrestles throughout the second half of the manuscript with his suddenly strong desires to commit suicide, blow up his school, beat the crap out of his high-strung domineering father, and a lot more. Yeah, not exactly a lighthearted romp, this one is, which in fact is a complaint I see from a lot of parents online, that YA fiction in general since 9/11 has turned much too dark for their tastes; but then that begs the age-old question of whether it's our times that influence what types of books are getting published, or if it's the books getting published that influence our times.
In any case, Anderson skirts a very fine line here with her own novel, legitimately earning it the classification of "edgy;" and to her credit she pulls it off with quite a bit of finesse, eventually pulling back at the end to give us if not exactly a happy ending, at least the avoidance of a tragedy. Although I don't really plan on getting this dark in my own work, I admire Anderson for successfully doing so herself, and would recommend this to any brainy alternative-leaning high-schooler wrestling with feelings of alienation and helplessness. It's absolutely not for younger readers or those suffering from legitimate mental problems, but is for sure a great choice for teens who are simply confused by the glee they sometimes feel from picturing dark fantasies come to life. All this should be kept in mind before picking it up yourself. (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. This is my second of the contemporary "superstar" young-adult (YA) books out there, a whole series of post-9/11 titles now in my reading list that have each sold millions of copies, usually without most of us adults being any the wiser; in particular it's the 2002 project of the prolific Sarah Dessen, who has emerged this decade as one of the biggest and most passionately loved authors in the entire history of the YA format. (If her name sounds familiar to adults as well, it's because two of her books were once combined and made into the mainstream movie How to Deal, starring Mandy Moore.) And I have to confess, after going into this book thinking it was to be yet another sappy, pop-culture-laced rom-com targeted specifically to teenage girls (you know, like "Sex and the City" without the sex), I was instead absolutely blown away by how expansive, subversive, and just plain moving this book in actuality was, and can now easily see why Dessen's collective oeuvre has now sold into the tens of millions of copies. It's essentially a character-based dramedy centered around a bewitchingly complex antihero named Remy -- a self-righteous know-it-all who has just graduated high school at the start of our tale -- who has become a prematurely responsible grown-up because of her flighty romance-novelist mother (entering her fifth marriage at the start of the book), and whose dead father happened to be a famous '70s country-rock musician but deadbeat dad, a one-hit-wonder whose biggest song (now a massively popular wedding staple) is a cheesy lullaby written to Remy on the day of her birth (hence this book's title).
In fact, from an analytical standpoint, I'm starting to understand just how important it is to build as big an amount of complexity into characters as possible when writing for a younger audience, simply because of the lack of interesting things that younger characters can realistically do -- like many YA novels, the actual action in this book consists mostly of Remy and her friends driving around, going on dates, killing time at their minimum-wage retail jobs as the like, making it of utmost importance that these people be as interesting as humanly possible, to counteract the lack of action in the actual plot. And that's something Dessen is a master at, I've discovered -- because with each chapter, Remy gets just a little more fascinating, with Dessen very slowly revealing the out-of-control trainwreck our hero used to be, a reckless 15-year-old who liked to party and sleep around who has turned into an anal-retentive 18-year-old who no longer believes in the concept of love. And that of course is what then makes her relationship with sloppy teenage rocker Dexter so much more interesting than the usual YA novel, in that there are all these layers of complexity that Dessen has built up to get in the way -- Remy's distrust of musicians, her coldly calculating views on romance, her gun-shy attitude anymore about sex and drinking, her oddly adult world-weariness over money and stability, etc.
Now add to this some of the most sparkling dialogue I've ever seen in a YA novel, and Dessen's refusal to shy away from more sensitive material -- much like John Green's work, This Lullaby is full of sex, liquor, cursing and negligent adults -- and it's easy to see why people go as nuts for her books as they do, and why so many argue that the best of YA literature these days deserves to have the "Y" dropped off the label altogether. I can agree with that when it comes to a book like this -- I think it's fair to call This Lullaby as sophisticated and entertaining as any adult relationship dramedy (even down to its full-sized length), simply with all the main characters being teenagers. (And in fact, you could argue that a book like this is actually better than most of the "Devil Wears Prada" chick-lit crap being force-fed to adult women these days, making it interesting to speculate what female-oriented literature might look like in another ten or fifteen years, when this current wave of Dessen-loving teenagers become adults themselves.) It's been a big shock to learn this year about the current state of YA literature, but needless to say a happy shock indeed. (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of popular books that have been recommended to me. Today's title was the winner of the 2009 National Book Award for YA fiction, but unfortunately I found it hard to get into, mostly because it's pretty much the exact opposite of the type of book I plan on writing -- it's historical fiction (set in the aftermath of WW2), told from the viewpoint of a shy girl, with a storyline that hinges around a traditional romance told in a traditional way. I'm sure that people who are into these types of books will find a lot to love here, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first reading a stack of existing books that have been recommended to me. Kevin Henkes' Bird Lake Moon was recommended as a good example of books for older grade-schoolers and middle-schoolers (so roughly ages 10 to 13) that deal with dark material in a gentle yet realistic way; it's almost 40,000 words total, on the heavy side of such books, and also contains an expansive vocabulary that will be a pleasant challenge for younger readers. It's the story of two boys who one summer move next to each other in the sleepy Wisconsin cottage community of Bird Lake; one has a set of parents who are going through a divorce, which is why they've temporarily moved in with his mother's cantankerous grandparents, while the other has a brother who drowned at Bird Lake almost a decade ago, with this being the traumatized family's first trip back.
Things I took away from this book, as far as my own struggle to become a better children's writer...
--Although really well done, I can see here why people recommend so much that character-oriented novels for kids be loaded up with a lot of extra drama and unique events, with this book many times coming off as what I imagine is too subtle for many kids, and therefore with only a limited potential audience (although of course with that audience intensely passionate about the book, precisely for these reasons). Also, to reference my own reading habits as a kid, this book many times feels not like the best of someone like Judy Blume (where the characters create and drive the situations being played out) but more like her second-tier work, minor books like Deenie and Iggie's House where it feels like first an issue was picked ("I think I'll write a book about desegregation in the suburbs") and only then were characters created and a plotline written. Although I want to reiterate that Henkes does a great job with the material he's chosen here, just like adult literature these kinds of stories need to feel natural and not forced, which Henkes teeters just on the edge of many times.
--And speaking of all this, I thought Henkes treads a very fine line here as far as how dark is too dark for kids in the 10-to-13 range; this is one of the issues I find fascinating as an author, in that I imagine many of my own future kid's books will be dark in tone as well, and I'm trying to learn exactly where the balance is for the pre-YA crowd. I really loved for example that one of our heroes, Mitch, is in typical divorced-kid fashion acting out just all the time, in ways that are sometimes surprisingly destructive for a person who's supposed to be our protagonist; for example, as part of his ongoing secret campaign to convince his new neighbors to leave again, in the desperate hope that his own family could move in next-door so that his mom and grandparents will stop fighting all the time, he actually unchains their dog and lets it run away while the family is gone for the afternoon, in what could've easily led to the dog's death or permanent disappearance in the real world. The book is full of moments like these, uncomfortably real details of just how dysfunctional people can get in the middle of a divorce or the grieving of a dead child, a polarizing element that I imagine young readers will either intensely love or hate.
--And finally, I thought this book did a particularly great job at examining the subtle relationship between kids at different ages, which I'm told is a topic that's really loved by many child readers at this age; ten-year-old Mitch admires his neighbor Spencer for being twelve, Spencer admires Mitch back for his above-average athletic skills, while both have a begrudging tolerance only for their fairytale-spouting, costume-wearing chatterbox grade-school siblings. And I also think that Henkes does a great job at examining the heavily flawed parents that are around these kids, and how their only so-so dealings with these family dramas end up creating new legitimate hassles sometimes for the kids themselves; just to cite one good example, how Stewart's mother after a few days realizes that the cloud of her first son's death is hanging just too heavily over the entire environment for her comfort, even though the entire rest of the family has quite intensely fallen in love with being there by then. This is such a subtle thing in children's literature, the question of just how much of adult personalities and adult weaknesses one should add to the story in the first place -- because obviously most kids are at least a little fascinated with adult behavior, and especially when they get a chance to glance at truly adult reactions that they suspect they're not supposed to be seeing, although ultimately most kids prefer that the books they read be primarily about other kids, and of the ways those kids live their lives when the adults aren't around. I have a lot more to learn about the various ways that authors deal with this subject, and is something I always keep a close eye on whenever reading yet another character-oriented middle-school drama. (less)
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then decide whether or not they deserve the label
Book #30: The Call of the Wild, by Jack London (1903)
The story in a nutshell: One of the first-ever anthropomorphized children's books, Jack London's 1903 Call of the Wild tells the tale of "Buck," a cross-bred dog (part Saint Bernard, part Scotch Shepherd) who begins our story as a pampered family pet in northern California*; what made this book unusual for its time, however, is that this story is actually told from the viewpoint and mindset of the dog itself, as Buck finds himself first kidnapped and then sold as a sled dog in the Yukon, right in the middle of that region's Industrial-Age gold rush, when hearty dogs were at a premium. The rest of this short book, then, is essentially a look at what happens to Buck within this environment, and how his formerly tame nature is slowly replaced with his inborn animal instinct, as we readers are introduced one at a time to the legitimate horrors that came with this lifestyle back then (starvation, exhaustion, cruel owners, hostile natives, bloody infighting for both survival and pecking order), with Buck by the end joining a pack of rogue Alaskan wolves and becoming a semi-mythical legend, among both the civilized humans and dogs who he leaves behind.
The argument for it being a classic: Well, to start with, it's one of the most popular children's books in history, with adaptations of the tale that continue to be created to this day (for example, a popular 3D movie version is being released on DVD the same exact week I'm writing this review); and then there's the fact that this was one of the first animal tales ever to be written from the point of view of the actual animal, a popular technique that in our modern times has become an entire subgenre unto itself. It can also be argued that this is a highly important historical record of the Alaskan gold rush, detailing the ins and outs of daily life there back then in a way that only a local could've (for those who don't know, London actually lived there himself for a time** starting in 1897); and let's not forget, its fans say, that this remains one of the few titles of the prolific London to still remain popular, out of the nearly hundred books he actually wrote, an author who was immensely important to the development of American literature in the early 20th century (not to mention insanely popular when he was alive), and who deserves to not be forgotten.
The argument against: Like many of the children's books included in this essay series, the main argument among its critics seems to be that this book is only still considered a "classic" in the first place because of tradition; that if you take an actual close look at the book itself, it is neither superlative in quality nor even that popular anymore, one of those titles more apt to be nostalgically reminisced upon by middle-agers than an actual good book to be read again and again in our contemporary times. This is part of the problem with the term "classic," after all, is that our definition of it is constantly changing from one generation to the next; and children's literature is particularly susceptible to this change in definition, in that it's children's books that have most changed in nature in the last hundred years. Although no one seems to be arguing anymore with the idea that this is a historically important book, there seems to be a growing amount of people saying that it isn't a timeless gem either, and that it's maybe time here in the early 2000s to retire its longstanding "classic" status.
My verdict: So out of the thirty books I've now reviewed for this essay series, this may be the hardest time I've had yet determining whether to classify a title as a "classic" or not. Because on the one hand, it's an undeniably thrilling book, a real page-turner that was a joy as a nostalgic middle-ager to read, and like I said is a fantastic look not just at the nature of the animal spirit but all the historical details of life in the Yukon during the gold-rush years. But on the other hand, the book is much, much more violent and dark than what most of us consider appropriate anymore for modern children, and parents deserve to know this before just handing a copy over to their kids; in fact, there's enough blood and death in this book to give just about any kid nightmares for weeks, making it ironically much more appropriate anymore for adults than contemporary children. Also, like any book that's over a hundred years old, there are big sections of Call of the Wild that simply feel outdated, and I question whether people would actually enjoy a title like this anymore if they're not reading specifically for historical reasons. As I mentioned, this is a big problem among a growing amount of children's literature that we once considered "classics," that in fact they're much more useful anymore as simple historical documents detailing a specific period in time, and aren't nearly as appropriate anymore for just handing to a modern kid, who after all has grown up with just a plethora of profoundly more sophisticated tales than such simplistic stories like these, and who aren't going to enjoy such stories nearly as much as a misty-eyed older adult looking back through the haze of nostalgia. It's for all these reasons that today I come down on the "no" side of the classic equation, although like I said, let it be known that I was right on the fence in this particular case.
*And a little piece of trivia, by the way: London based this book on his landlord's pet dog, back when he lived in northern California himself during the height of the Yukon gold rush, a Saint Bernard that the families would regularly hook up to a wagon and have help perform household chores.
**And if you really want to read something fascinating, check out sometime the actual derring-do life of London himself, who had real adventures in his youth twice as crazy as any of the stories he wrote: the illegitimate child of an astrologer and a mentally insane spiritualist, as a teenager he bought his first boat (borrowing money from the ex-slave who raised him) and became an oyster farmer, then after high school became a seal clubber in Japan for awhile; then during his years as a Yukon gold miner he developed scurvy and almost died, becoming a socialist by the end of his time there because of a liberal doctor who saved his life, and eventually becoming one of the first Americans in history to be able to make his entire living just from creative writing alone (and indeed, one of only a few handfuls of Americans to this day to become a millionaire from his creative writing). Sheesh! (less)
A friend has convinced me to try my hand this year for the first time at writing children's literature; but I don't actually know anything about children's literature, so am starting the process among other ways by first re-reading a selection of books I myself enjoyed as a kid, to see if I can figure out as an adult why I liked them so much. And being a child of the '70s, of course my favorite author during my own youth was Judy Blume; and 1971's Then Again, Maybe I Won't was my second-favorite of all her books back then, known among my childhood friends as the male equivalent of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (my number-one favorite Blume title), in that it was the book that middle-school girls read to get an idea of what was going through the minds of middle-school boys, while Margaret served the exact opposite function. And indeed, reading through it this week for the first time as an adult, I was surprised to see how the vast majority of the book actually deals with the class struggles that come from a poorer Italian family in urban New Jersey who suddenly become an upper-middle-class family in suburban Long Island, due to a McGuffin-like invention by the family's patriarch; because as many of you can guess, about the only thing I remembered anymore about the book, 30 years after I first read it, is its frank portrayal of pubescent sexuality, which as an adult I now realize is a subject that confines itself to literally only four or five pages of this entire manuscript. And this was the power of Blume's work in the '70s, I suppose, that it tackled head-on the kinds of messy yet very real issues that confront most 10- to 13-year-olds, in a candid way that kids ate up back then but that made her controversial among adults; it's a tradition that I realize now as an adult started with JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and that paved the way for such contemporary YA masters as John Green and Sarah Dessen.
In fact, one of the biggest things I take away from this book as an adult is just how much I craved flawed characters as a kid, heroes who made plenty of mistakes and sometimes had less-than-stellar personalities, such a change from the perfect little sweethearts that dominated children's literature before the countercultural '60s; and I suppose this is why I was drawn so much to character-based dramas in general during those years, although it should be noted that I was as much a fan of various action-oriented books in those same years, such as the Narnia series and the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries (several of which I'll also be re-reading for eventual critical inspection here). What I learned as a writer by re-reading this is that kids can often forget nearly everything about a book and still count it as a favorite, as long as it offers up a few genuinely unique, laser-precise insights into tricky areas of the child psyche; unfortunately from a professional standpoint, I'm told that such books are incredibly difficult to get sold, and require coming across a dedicated editor with a mindset towards winning awards, and who doesn't mind taking on the occasional censorship battle. (There's a reason, after all, that something like 80 percent of the submission guidelines I've now read from various publishers explicitly state, "We do not accept manuscripts that deal with puberty or sexuality.") Although they're the kinds of books that stick in readers' heads for decades, I'm coming to realize that one simply cannot try to base a career on such titles (unless you're Judy Blume, and I am certainly not Judy Blume), although definitely one can always be concentrating on adding unique insights about childhood to virtually any kid-lit story they're writing. (less)
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of C...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether they deserve the label Review #10: The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger (1951)
The story in a nutshell: Not so much of a traditional plot-based story, The Catcher in the Rye is instead a look at a 48-hour block in the life of an American teen named Holden Caulfield, a skinny and obnoxious kid who comes from a generally comfortable, decent family on the east coast, but who for some reason just seemingly can't get along with anyone or fit in anywhere. In fact, as the novel opens, Holden has just gotten kicked out of yet another private prep school; it is right before holiday, in fact, with his family expecting him home in two days anyway, so he's decided to just hoof it around the New York area for the next 48 hours and spend some time thinking about his life.
As a result, not much of note actually happens to Holden over the next two days -- he visits an old teacher he doesn't like very much, invites an ex-girlfriend he doesn't like very much to go traveling with him, eventually ends up in Manhattan, then back at his parents' place, and then finally an amusement park while entertaining his little sister. The main point of the book, then, is to try to understand Holden as a character and deeply flawed human; to watch the way he looks at life, to notice the way he idolizes his older brother, out in Hollywood and making a living as a screenwriter. Holden is both restless and old-fashioned, tender and cruel, someone who is sometimes blurting out uncomfortable truths and sometimes lying right to your face. And by the time we're done, hopefully we've learned something not only about him in particular but about teens in general, and especially the sense of alienation and standoffishness that comes to so many at that age no matter when in history we're talking about.
The argument for it being a classic: The argument for this being a classic is a clean and simple one -- it is demonstrably the very first book in history to establish the "confessional young adult" genre, one that has grown in our modern times to accommodate tens of thousands of books and millions of grateful teen fans. Before Catcher in the Rye, its fans say, there were only two types of stories considered appropriate for younger readers -- either moralistic tales that very sternly taught right from wrong, or the kind of psuedo-science babble mysteries like I was mentioning last week, when I was reviewing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Salinger was the very first person to publish a book about a teen written from the teen's point of view himself, a very raw point of view that contains sex, filth, cursing galore, and all the other prurient stuff that comes with peeking inside a 16-year-old boy's head; it was a breakthrough of the Modernist era, fans claim, one of those seminal projects that broke the ground for all the naturalistic books and films in the '50s, '60s and '70s that came afterwards. Oh, and if this weren't enough, it just also happens to be the most censored book in the history of the United States, as well as a personal favorite of both Mark David Chapman (who killed John Lennon) and John Hinckley Jr (who shot Ronald Reagan); these facts alone almost guarantee it a spot on any list of classics.
The argument against: The main argument against this being a classic seems to be that it's become a victim of its own success; indeed, Catcher in the Rye has been so influential over the decades, its critics say, an entire genre of "Salingeresque" work now exists (which like I said is more formally known as "confessional young adult"), many books of which are actually much better than the original that started them all. After all, let's admit it, Catcher in the Rye has its problems, ones typical of any young and inexperienced writer (which Salinger was when first penning this); just as one good example, there are only so many times you can use the word 'g-ddam' in one story before it becomes a self-parodying joke. Like many of the books being reviewed in this essay series, I don't think there's a single human out there who would deny this novel's historical importance; but that's not what we're trying to determine here with the CCLaP 100, but rather whether it's a book you personally should read before you die.
My verdict: So imagine my shock when I found myself finishing this book and saying to myself, "My God -- JD Salinger is basically Judy Blume with more cursing." (Or to be completely fair, I guess that should be worded -- "My God, Judy Blume is basically JD Salinger with Jews and menstruation.") I guess I had been expecting a lot more, given what a supernaturally high regard this book has among such a large swath of the general population; I was expecting it to not only be a good Young Adult novel (which it admittedly is) but also something that was going to reveal some sort of transcendent truth about the world to me as a fully-grown adult.
Er...it doesn't. This is just a good Young Adult novel, and you owe it to yourself to know that going into it; that unless you're a teen yourself when you read it, there really isn't going to be anything too terribly original or groundbreaking found in this manuscript. In fact, you could argue that Salinger was quite smart to basically wall himself off from the press and general public after this book, and never publish again (he's still alive, by the way, for those who don't know, reputedly living a happy and quiet life somewhere on the Atlantic Seaboard); because ultimately this is not a great book but simply a good one, eventually made legendary because of the time period it was published, and the subsequent reclusive career that Salinger has had. Its overwhelming historical significance I think earns it a place on the classics list, plus the fact that it's not actually a bad book at all; it's just that this is a kind of book that adults have already read many times before, especially if you were a fan of such authors as Betsy Byars when you were a teen yourself.
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