The Most Overrated Books Showing 2,751-2,800 of 5,680

[Monty J]

Jamie Lynn wrote: "I'm just glad Salinger wasn't around when my daughter was a teen."

You of course have a right to that opinion. Even if she's over 18, you can have that opinion, but you have no longer the authority to compel her NOT to see an older man if that is her will.

Salinger never had (to anyone's knowledge) a sexual relationship with an underage female, nor any female who did not willingly, of her own choice, enter into such a relationship.

A young woman has a right to choose an older man if that is her will. And many do. There are benefits of doing so. It is not as one-sided as Joyce Maynard makes it out to be. That may have been HER experience, but she may have been emotionally immature. I suspect she was, but that is NOT Salinger's fault. It's the fault of her parents.

Salinger had many such relationships, and Maynard is the only one complaining. She wrote a "tell-all" memoir and auctioned his love letters. She has a financial interest interest in portraying their relationship as something salacious. She's exploiting Salinger, not the other way around.

Salinger has just as much a right to seek a loving relationship as anyone else. So it took him a while to find the right mate. Do we condemn women for having more than one boyfriend!?

His preference for younger women is explained in my blog. (He was embarrassed by his freakish genitalia, having been born with one testicle.)

Did you read what I wrote? Or are you even interested in a different perception than the one you have bought hook-line-and-sinker from mercenary Maynard through the documentary?

It sounds like in your book of rules, no older man can have any sort of relationship with a girl unless he's a schoolteacher or a priest. What if he's writing a book about teenagers? Is he supposed to leave out girls? Are girls then the subject matter of just female authors? Does that rule play in reverse or do female authors get to write about teenage boys? Do you think J.K. Rowling only interviewed her son while writing the Harry Potter series?

Just asking for clarification here.

[[deleted user]]

I think WILLINGLY, informed consent, is the point. And I am uncomfortable with any relationship where there is a big power difference. Doctor/patient ( completely out of bounds in the UK), teacher/pupil, boss/ staff member. Big age difference, too.
Those are situations in which one of the partners might be vulnerable, that one has to be careful before approving or disapproving.

[Monty J]

Lucie wrote: "Call me weird, but for me, real life or character of an artist is completely separated from his/her books or other art."

To each his/her own.

I, on the other hand, sometimes want a total immersion in a work of art. I want a 360-degree view, plus. I want to know what the author was thinking, what made him/her construct a character or a plot a certain way. I want to know what other readers think about the work, scene by scene, character by character, sometimes word by word. For only in this way can I glean enough to understand how that work was created and hope to create something my own of value.

Every reader has a right to their own relationship with a book, nor do they have the right to judge someone else's.

It is a holy trinity, the relationship between reader, work, and writer.

[Monty J]

Lucie wrote: "Big age difference, too."

I presume you refer to "chronological" age vs emotional age. I have known men and women who were retarded in their emotional development due to some childhood deprivation or trauma. The "age difference" and vulnerability can be exaggerated or reversed, depending on emotional maturity.

Anna Nicole Smith comes to mind. There are many who feel she was guilty of elder abuse.

But the courts and society at large think only in terms of chronological age.

[Karen]

Lucie wrote: "
I think WILLINGLY, informed consent, is the point. And I am uncomfortable with any relationship where there is a big power difference. Doctor/patient ( completely out of bounds in the UK), teacher/pupil, boss/ staff member. Big age difference, too.
Those are situations in which one of the partners might be vulnerable, that one has to be careful before approving or disapproving"


Well, like I said before my mother-in-laws husband was 20 years older than she- a kind, wonderful man. In my case, the 25 year difference in age was never a power problem, I had as much power in the relationship as he did.

[Kallie]

Sebastian wrote: "And then again the author is not that important. Like wise Wilde once wrote: To reveal art and conceal the artist is at art's aim."

But I think Wilde meant that the author should not appear in her/his work of art and even that dictum is sometimes violated with brilliant results (i.e., self-portraits). It's funny that someone so notorious as Wilde should say that. I'm with Monty on this; if the writer is interesting I want to know more about them. Literary biographies can be great (or awful), depending on the skill of the biographer -- then we have an entirely different work in which the author plays a part, which I find interesting. Judith Thurman's Colette bio is so good, I almost prefer it to reading Colette (just kidding).

[Karen]

Monty J wrote: "Lucie wrote: "Big age difference, too."

I presume you refer to "chronological" age vs emotional age. I have known men and women who were retarded in their emotional development due to some childho..."


That's a good point too, but sonetimes it's a good match and lasts a long time. Alot of times not.

[[deleted user]]

Life is of course never binary.
Remember Oona O'Neil? She was 36 years younger than Charlie Chaplin, and when they were getting married, she said something like:
"People are telling me he will get old and decrepit and I will have to look after him, but at the same time that he is a womaniser and will leave me for another woman , Well, it can't be both"
In fact I think they were happy.

[Karen]

Lucie wrote: "Life is of course never binary.
Remember Oona O'Neil? She was 36 years younger than Charlie Chaplin, and when they were getting married, she said something like:
"People are telling me he will get ..."

Good old Charlie!

[Karen]

Edward wrote: "Monty J wrote: "Jamie Lynn wrote: "I'm just glad Salinger wasn't around when my daughter was a teen."

You of course have a right to that opinion. Even if she's over 18, you can have that opinion, ..."

Not always, not with me, that was never my first intention at all. I went out with people before I was married ofcourse, because I liked them.

[[deleted user]]

Karen wrote: Unless it's an auto-biographical writer, like ..."

Well yes, I mean if knowing something about the author will help the reader get a better understanding of the text itself that's fine. For instance when reading Portrait by Joyce I was greatly aided by the footnotes that explained the relevance of those Irish places and the auto-biographical references.

What I meant is that the personal ethos of the author should not influence the text itself i.e. the fact that an author like Ezra Pound or T.S.Eliot was an Anti-Semite should not in itself cause a dislike of his poetry (I personally despise racism on all its levels and firmly believe elitism among human beings is deplorable.

[Monty J]

Lucie wrote: "Life is of course never binary.
Remember Oona O'Neil? ...In fact I think they were happy. "

They were married until his death, 34 years, and had 8 children. By all accounts they were very happy.

[Karen]

Jamie Lynn wrote: "Anyhow as I said I'm surprised that I'm the only one who is turned off by the idea of men close to 40 and older being with teenage girls."

But you said Tolstoy was a perv, his wife was 18.

[[deleted user]]

Jamie Lynn wrote: "Anyhow as I said I'm surprised that I'm the only one who is turned off by the idea of men close to 40 and older being with teenage girls."

Well if she is over 18 and in a relationship with a 40 yr old that's not illegal.

[[deleted user]]

Wilde also said The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.

[Gary]

Jamie Lynn wrote: "Anyhow as I said I'm surprised that I'm the only one who is turned off by the idea of men close to 40 and older being with teenage girls."

I think the problem is that you're characterizing it in a way that isn't accurate. After all, "teenage" is 13-19, with the majority of that range being under-aged. So, saying "teenage girls" rather than "young women" implies that he was going after pubescent children. The facts are that we have no information that he ever did anything with anyone who wasn't (and still isn't) deemed an adult.

Age disparity is, more often than not, just a way of shaming people. Consenting adults are consenting adults. There are relative power, maturity and experience imbalances, of course, but that's the case for any relationship. There's an argument to be made if someone lacks the capacity to actually consent, but since we consider people 18 and often younger of an age to bear arms, face the consequences of their actions legally, etc. then it seems to me that an objection about who they decide to romance doesn't add up.

[Monty J]

Jamie Lynn wrote: "Salinger was hanging around high school kids."

Good god, how else would a writer get material to write about teenagers than to associate with them? I refer again to J.K. Rowling. Do you think she didn't talk to and "hang around" (associate with) young boys? Why is it okay for her and not Salinger?

"I was referring to 14 yr olds not 22 yr olds."

I assume you are referring to Jean Miller, per The Daily Beast's article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles...

Here's a quote: "It turns out that Jean Miller was only 14 when she first got involved with Salinger.'Jerry Salinger listened like you were the most important person in the world,' Miller says in the book. 'I felt very free with him.' At first, Salinger and Miller would just walk and talk, first in Florida, then in New York, and later at his compound in Cornish, N.H. Years later, when Miller was 20, they finally had sex—an encounter that Miller initiated."

It was not anything close to a sexual relationship until Miller seduced Salinger six years later. Miller lived in the UK much of the time he was in contact with her and their "relationship," was by correspondence. Salinger modeled the character Eseme in "For Eseme With Love and Squalor" after Miller.

His interest in Jean was professional. If he were a photographer and she a model, would you still have a problem with it?

There was never a question of impropriety. When she was under-age, Jean was chaperoned. Her mother was with her on the Florida beach when Salinger first met her. He asked her mother's permission to talk with her.

But Maynard tried to make something salacious of the Jean Miller relationship in order to prop up the flagging sales of her tell-all memoir. Miller had nothing but good things so say about Salinger. She was there; Maynard was not. Through Maynard we're getting a twisted view.

"He really never healed from the war for one thing."

Is this surprising, given he saw more major combat than practically any other American soldier (Utah Beach, Normandy; Battle of the Bulge; Huertgen; liberation of Dachau concentration camp)? Only after recurrent bouts of suicidal thoughts did Salinger submit himself for psychiatric care, and even this was heroic because he delayed coming forward, fearing he would be branded a malingerer or a coward, as General Patton so publicly did another soldier hospitalized for battle fatigue, publicly slapping and humiliating him.

Is permanent mental impairment something to be held against a war hero? What in blazes are your expectations of major combat veterans?

Salinger's service in World War II was nothing less than heroic, but he avoided the limelight. He kept the five battle stars and unit citation he earned in a miniature wood coffin, one of his most prized possessions. But he never spoke about it. He never sought recognition for his heroism.

He let his typewriter do his talking, and I suspect we are in store for some eye-opening revelations about war in his new publications, hopefully starting next year.

[P.R.]

I agree that this book is at least a bit overrated. It gets points for representing the type of rebellious teen on a threshold of adulthoot that many can identify with. But it suffers from some problems as well.
The most annoying one to me was the writing. It lacks creatvity and uses the same words over and over. Just try to count all those "It made me so depressed", "it killed me", "and all" and of course the infamous "phony". If you read like a couple of pages now and then it won't be so apparent, but when you read this book in one sitting it's just painful.
Second thing, there's not much of a story here, just two days from a life of a whiny teenager, that don't make much of a point, the whole time it doesn't seem like the story is going anywhere and there's not much of character development.
Third thing, the lack of interesting chartacters. Not even the main character made me feel like I want to get to know him or read more about him.

I don't think I'm too old for the book, I'm only 24. My memories of being a teenager are still very clear to me, but I don't remember ever being as whiny as Holden was. Seriosuly, most of this book was totally annyoing.

[Cosmic]

P. R. wrote: "Just try to count all those "It made me so depressed", "it killed me", "and all" and of course the infamous "phony"..."

That is a great idea! There are 33 phonies in fact.

Wonder if the book were not a story about a boy but a coded message about WW2 itself in the guise of a novel. A real De Vinci Code!

Take a look at this post :

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

And others in my group BREAKING The Code To The Catcher In The Rye. Leave a comment. Let me know what you think.

[Stephen]

Jamie Lynn wrote: "Actually, Salinger himself was a little messed up. He really never healed from the war for one thing. I was kind of turned off when I found out that he was into teenaged girls. ..."

Not surprising then when he has young Holden hinting about having been been molested by adults eh?

[Matthew]

P. R. wrote: "...there's not much of a story here, just two days from a life of a whiny teenager, that don't make much of a point, the whole time it doesn't seem like the story is going anywhere and there's not much of character development..."

Does there have to be much of a story or plot when the main point is too look at Holden's outlook on life? Like him or not, the novel tells a lot about his character and about his perception of the character of others.

[Kallie]

Sebastian wrote: "Wilde also said The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography."

Okay, but if it is well-written it's worth reading.

[Karen]

P. R. wrote: "I agree that this book is at least a bit overrated. It gets points for representing the type of rebellious teen on a threshold of adulthoot that many can identify with. But it suffers from some pro..."

It's repetitive because it's Holdens voice, he's 16 years old.

[Kallie]

P. R. wrote: "I agree that this book is at least a bit overrated. It gets points for representing the type of rebellious teen on a threshold of adulthoot that many can identify with. But it suffers from some pro..."

I couldn't agree less. These are opinions and many people who think well of the writing and characterizations don't share them. And as Karen says, Holden is 16 years old and people that age often have favorite expressions. I knew a kid who said "Fast!" when someone did something especially smart, stupid, cool, uncool, ugly, beautiful, wise, vapid. Holden is not that extreme, but not so unusual either, at least not for kids in the 1960s.

[Gary]

P. R. wrote: "My memories of being a teenager are still very clear to me, but I don't remember ever being as whiny as Holden was. Seriosuly, most of this book was totally annyoing."

Sorry to be so direct, but that sounds very much like how a teen might put it....

But, hey, if it wasn't for you then that's fine. I would suggest you might want to revisit the book in a few years, though, just to see if you have the same experience.

[Monty J]

P. R. wrote: " uses the same words over and over. Just try to count all those "It made me so depressed", "it killed me", "and all" and of course the infamous "phony". If you read like a couple of pages now and then it won't be so apparent, but when you read this book in one sitting it's just painful."

The painfulness means the characterization is effective. You're trapped in the head of a pain-in-the-ass teenage boy. The repetition is in character. Ever listened to a "valley girl?" Or a teenager saying "like" or "really" every other word? Take ride in a school bus.

"...there's not much of a story here, just two days from a life of a whiny teenager, that don't make much of a point, the whole time it doesn't seem like the story is going anywhere..."

This is a character driven story, not plot driven. On every page you are given some aspect of the character's personality, the issues he's dealing with. Every time he interacts with someone or responds to his environment you learn about him. Why does he wipe off the "Fuck you" graffiti? Why is it so irritating to him? Why does he care about the ducks in Central Park? Why does he slug Stradlater, a guy much stronger than him? If these questions don't occur to you then maybe the books just not for you.

"...there's not much of character development."
It may not seem that way because Salinger doesn't hit you over the head to drive home a pint. Except for the ducks, he never repeats anything; so you have to pay close attention to every word.

As for character arc, Holden starts out in trouble, he's been booted from an expensive boarding school for the third time and he doesn't want to hang around for three days and get teased about it. He's not ready to face his parents either; so he declares a 3-day holiday and heads for New York, where he's consumed with loneliness and despair, has suicidal thoughts, decides to run away not face his parents after all. During this time we learn his background, that he's grieving for his dead brother Allie, and that he's witnessed the suicide of a classmate, James Castle, a tip-off that Holden's suffering from mental problems--depression, crying spells, feelings of isolation--stemming from these traumatic events. We learn that his parents also haven't been the same since Allie's death. They too are grieving. Just as Holden's about to run away though, little sister Phoebe comes into the picture and rescues him, pulls him back from the brink of running away ("going over the cliff") by showing how much she loves him. The Catcher becomes the caught, caught by Phoebe.

Is he changed? Sure he is. In the denoument we learn that he's in a "rest home" recuperating from his breakdown and that he now cares about the people he was angry at earlier--Stradlater, Ackley, even old Maurice.

The character arc is Holden in trouble, can't find an answer or an explanation, descends into chaos, almost blows it by running away, becomes physically ill and gets a change of heart by being reminded by Phoebe that he is loved unconditionally, leading to his recovery.

"...the lack of interesting characters. Not even the main character made me feel like I want to get to know him or read more about him."

Can't help you there. I felt the same way the first time I read it at age 19. At age 63 it became an entirely different story. A lot of the themes tend to be more adult in nature, but there's some meat also for the young adults--phoniness, acceptance, getting along with peers, sexual identity, alienation from parents.

[Kallie]

Karen wrote: "P. R. wrote: "I agree that this book is at least a bit overrated. It gets points for representing the type of rebellious teen on a threshold of adulthoot that many can identify with. But it suffers..."

Here is an interesting article about repetitiveness (among other things) in young people's speech.

http://tinyurl.com/ppstsle

[Renee E]

In a character driven story (really in any story that has speaking characters), voice is everything. If you screw that up the story's compromised.

Catcher never wavers in voice. That's why we have such visceral reactions to Holden.

[Karen]

Renee wrote: "In a character driven story (really in any story that has speaking characters), voice is everything. If you screw that up the story's compromised.

Catcher never wavers in voice. That's why we have..."

Holden is very real, as if he is in the room or on the street with you. I could have reached out and grabbed him while I was reading TCiTR, quite an accomplishment for Salinger to be able to do that.

[Cosmic]

Kallie wrote: "Kallie wrote: "Karen wrote: "P. R. wrote: "I agree that this book is at least a bit overrated. It gets points for representing the type of rebellious teen on a threshold of adulthoot that many can identify with. ..."

I enjoyed this article. Thank you. It was interesting to see the word "circumlocutions" used. I love it when I come across that word. It makes me think of Bleak House.

I think that if Salinger were going to use repetitive markers to code something this was a really brilliant and natural use. It has worked so well that it has gone undetected.

[Cosmic]

Monty J wrote: "Why does he wipe off the "Fuck you" graffiti? ..."


More importantly where does he find the "F@$k you" graffiti?

I enjoyed reading you take on Holden. I appreciate you pointing out that it is a character driven plot. Can you think of other books that share this same style? I guess David Copperfield. But maybe another one comes to mind.

Anyway thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[Cosmic]

Renee wrote: "In a character driven story (really in any story that has speaking characters), voice is everything. If you screw that up the story's compromised.

Catcher never wavers in voice. That's why we have..."

I just really appreciate everything you said here! I love seeing it through your eyes. Thank you.

[Cosmic]

Karen wrote: "Holden is very real, as if he is in the room or on the street with you. I could have reached out and grabbed him while I was reading TCiTR, quite an accomplishment for Salinger to be able to do that. ..."

I love Salinger for creating such a witty character. I even like quoting from the book. I totally agree with you that this is part of Salinger's genius.

[Petergiaquinta]

Jean Louise Finch has insight beyond her years and sometimes sounds much older than her 6 to 9-year-old self, and that's because as a narrator she's a woman looking back ay her childhood, but Holden is looking one year back, and his voice is consistently a teen's, a smart teen but still a teenager. Salinger maintains it very well.

[Monty J]

Petergiaquinta wrote: "Jean Louise Finch has insight beyond her years and sometimes sounds much older than her 6 to 9-year-old self, and that's because as a narrator she's a woman looking back ay her childhood, but Holde..."

Harper Lee took much flak from litcrits for the flip flopping she did with Scout, but it worked, for me.

[Monty J]

Cosmic wrote: "More importantly where does he find the "F@$k you" graffiti?"

On the wall at Phoebe's school, on a wall in the museum and on some stairs.


"I appreciate you pointing out that it is a character driven plot. Can you think of other books that share this same style?"

Character-driven or first-person?

Either way, the first three that come to mind are all war novels: All Quiet on the Western Front, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Slaughterhouse Five. Then: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion (both by Ken Kesey) and the films Crash, The Big Chill and Breakfast Club.

I like a character driven plot because I can't predict what's going to happen as I can with most plot-driven works.

Other great first-person narrations are: Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Old Man and the Sea, Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Great Gatsby.

None of these can hold a candle to CiTR's Holden though in terms of the depth and completeness of rendering the character except maybe the war novels, but they're not too close, IMHO.

Note how many are relatively short, novellas. When you're living inside someone's head who has a nagging problem, you want out pretty quick.

[Monty J]

Edward wrote: " I find Holden's manner of speech a combination of insight beyond his years mixed with typical teenager stuff. I've seen other authors attempt to get that balance and fail miserably. So, why have I not seen superlatives offered for that?"

Somewhere in these posts I have remarked something to the effect that not before or since Salinger's Holden Caulfield has there been rendered, in print, an American teenage boy so thoroughly and completely. In film, there's Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People, a suburban version of TCiTR shown predominantly from Conrad's point of view.

I believe this to be true, which is why I have made a study of this book. There is to my knowledge no better model.

[[deleted user]]

Kallie wrote: Okay, but if it is well-written it's worth reading."

Most certainly. The Portrait of the Artist by Joyce is very autobiographical and it is a very good novel, one of the best ones I ever read. Non serviam.

[Kallie]

I'm never clear about what people are looking for when they complain of a well-written book "Not much happens." Is every book supposed to read like a thriller, a murder mystery? Nobody gets chased or murdered but quite a lot happens on every page of Catcher. Character-driven stories can also be quite dramatic which is fine if the action seems inevitable. In Flannery O'Conner's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" every turning point can be traced to the grandmother's willful, sneaky character.

[Paul Martin]

Is every book supposed to read like a thriller, a murder mystery?

If that were the case, a book like The Magic Mountain would never have been published or read. Nothing happens, and everything happens.

[[deleted user]]

I even LIKE book where " nothing happens"

[[deleted user]]

Kallie wrote: "I'm never clear about what people are looking for when they complain of a well-written book "Not much happens." Is every book supposed to read like a thriller, a murder mystery? Nobody gets chase..."

Exactly! Furthermore if the greatness of a book is due to its plot then it does not need to be read a second time.

[Karen]

Sebastian wrote: "Kallie wrote: "I'm never clear about what people are looking for when they complain of a well-written book "Not much happens." Is every book supposed to read like a thriller, a murder mystery? No..."

I think when people are just reading action books, murder mysteries- plot driven
stories, making the switch to reading classics where "nothing much happens" is hard. One needs to read in a new way when focusing on a plot is not supposed to be the goal.

[Mochaspresso]

I have to admit that I said that of "Tess of the D'urbervilles" when I first read it. It wasn't so much that nothing happens, but that I felt Hardy would go off on tangents with lengthy descriptions of things that I didn't care about at the time. My young self would say things like, "Jeez, I know what an English countryside looks like.....just get on with the story". That's why it's often good to go back and re-read those books that you were "tortured" with in school every once in a while. When you are older and have a better understanding of things like allegory, allusion and symbolism, it's easier to spot during a re-read because you already know the story and that is not necessarily your focus anymore.

[[deleted user]]

Karen wrote: "Sebastian wrote: "Kallie wrote: "I'm never clear about what people are looking for when they complain of a well-written book "Not much happens." Is every book supposed to read like a thriller, a m..."

Yes! There are more important aspects of a text than the plot. If we look at unparalleled masterworks of literature like Hamlet there really isn't anything that is so interesting in the plot. I read and heard about people that hate the play because it took Hamlet four acts to actually carry out the murder. On the other if we look at it with an open mind we see Hamlet that challenges himself with questions on himself, death, his love for Ophelia etc.

I think one should not read for mere entertainment, for mere "fun". We have all kinds of easy pleasures let reading be a difficult one.

[Renee E]

Tangent: You guys . . . THANKS. I so needed to *hear* that. The other writers in my group are primarily mystery writers and a couple of them keep mentioning the "nothing happens" business about the story I'm working on. It's character driven, introspective, and I've felt that, at times, too much happens!

One of them repeatedly remarks that, to him, it recalls CItR — which he disliked.

So my thanks. <3 I needed to be reminded of this.

[Paul Martin]

Renee wrote: "It's character driven, introspective, and I've felt that, at times, too much happens! "

That sounds good. When will it be out, if I may ask?

[Renee E]

Thanks :D I'm not sure Paul. I've sworn that this year is the year of The Black Dog Dialogues :D

I'm 130,000 words in, editing as I go, or when I'm stalled, so a couple of good solid edits after the last words are down and I should have it.

The story has been incredibly organic, growing directly from the characters.

[Paul Martin]

Not bad! Any particular reason for why you're not registered as an author on Goodreads?

[Renee E]

I figured it was a bit presumptive until I get this one out :-)

Thousands of website dog articles out there (that don't have my name on them) and poetry in New Millennium Writings, but I haven't been ready to throw any prose to the wolves yet, although I figure some of the short stories (Black Dog was originally supposed to be an anchor story for an anthology) will go out as free downloads when I launch this.

I've a couple of pieces, a short-short, Heart Shaped Box, and a poem, Oubliette, posted in my writing here. I may pull out a short section of Black Dog and post it.