The Catcher in the Rye
discussion
The Most Overrated Books
Paul Martin wrote: "Looks like a really nice place!"It is, expensive to live here, especially on the ocean, I'm about 12 minutes from it. And I have a small cottage, which we love. The population increases so much in the summer! I bet the coast of Norway is nice too.
Paul Martin wrote: "We do. Without it, but it's still cold most of the time, but some summers it just suddenly gets really hot. I don't know why, really, but I supposed there's some good explanation for it.Another c..."
I've read there are more great whites on both our coasts, or more sightings anyway. I've wondered how close I came to one without knowing it was there. Brrrrrr.
Kallie wrote: "I've read there are more great whites on both our coasts, or more sightings anyway. I've wondered how close I came to one without knowing it was there. Brrrrrr"
There are so many here because of the seal increase partly. They're only at the very end of the Cape, where the water is colder, so I don't see them alot. You just have to stay close to the shore.
Karen wrote: "Kallie wrote: "I've read there are more great whites on both our coasts, or more sightings anyway. I've wondered how close I came to one without knowing it was there. Brrrrrr"
There are so many ..."
There was a warning sign with a shark on it at one of the Pt. Reyes beaches near where I used to live. They came close there, apparently.
I live on Amelia Island, FL and we see sharks frequently. The big ones stay off shore, but people catch 3-4' ones all the time.
Karen wrote: "Paul Martin wrote: "It usually is, but this summer's been crazy. If every summer was like this, we'd get more tourists than Greece and Turkey combined!"You get the jet stream though right? The Ca..."
OOPS!! I meant to say GULF STREAM! LOL.
Anne Hawn wrote: "I live on Amelia Island, FL and we see sharks frequently. The big ones stay off shore, but people catch 3-4' ones all the time."Ours are big- 12 footer the other day.
Karen wrote: "Anne Hawn wrote: "I live on Amelia Island, FL and we see sharks frequently. The big ones stay off shore, but people catch 3-4' ones all the time."Ours are big- 12 footer the other day."
A reason I like the pool, lol!
I do love the ocean, but there's a lot to be said for crystal clear water that you don't have to share with things that have teeth and might find you tasty.
Renee wrote: "I do love the ocean, but there's a lot to be said for crystal clear water that you don't have to share with things that have teeth and might find you tasty."You don't like water polo?
Gary wrote: "Renee wrote: "I do love the ocean, but there's a lot to be said for crystal clear water that you don't have to share with things that have teeth and might find you tasty."You don't like water polo?"
Renee wrote: "Karen wrote: "Anne Hawn wrote: "I live on Amelia Island, FL and we see sharks frequently. The big ones stay off shore, but people catch 3-4' ones all the time."
Ours are big- 12 footer the other ..."
HAHAHA! LOL!
Gary wrote: "Renee wrote: "I do love the ocean, but there's a lot to be said for crystal clear water that you don't have to share with things that have teeth and might find you tasty."You don't like water polo?"
All the horseshit clogs the filters!
Wow, I mention reading my Kindle in the bath and now we're into global warming!
And here we've been thinking it was carbon emissions.It's e-books! E-books cause global warming!
OOPS!! I meant to say GULF STREAM! LOL.Haha, I meant what you understood;)
For a second, I thought it was some American nickname for it; "The Jet", haha.
Paul Martin wrote: "OOPS!! I meant to say GULF STREAM! LOL.Haha, I meant what you understood;)
For a second, I thought it was some American nickname for it; "The Jet", haha."
I understood what you meant too! Ha!
I don't know if any of you are interested in reading The Catcher In The Rye again but they are having a group read of this book herehttps://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
You don't have to live in Lexington to join.
I came across this interesting formulation in David Galloway's 1966 volume, The Absurd Hero in American Fiction: Updike, Styron, Bellow, Salinger, Second Revised Edition:"To act with morality and love in a universe in which God is dead (or, at least, in which historical preconceptions of God frequently seem invalid) is perhaps the most acute problem of our age. Salinger's intense consideration of that problem in large part accounts for the fact that, while he is one of the least prolific authors writing today, he is the most popular."
Michael wrote: "I came across this interesting formulation in David Galloway's 1966 volume, The Absurd Hero in American Fiction: Updike, Styron, Bellow, Salinger, Second Revised Edition:"To act wit..."
That is a interesting quote considering it was written in 1966. Thank you for sharing it.
What do you mean by "considering it was written in 1966"? Post-WWII was a time of far more alienation than presently. Concerns of nuclear destruction from the Bomb, the absence of God...these are far less troubling right now. When I was a kid, people talked about global annihilation; now it's not much of a pressing concern to the youth of America. They don't grow up with the same overwhelming sense of fear and loss. Most of them don't even think about going to war even though we're in the middle of fighting one (or is it two?). When's the last time you saw a sign for a bomb shelter in the U.S.? When's the last time you saw dead or wounded soldiers on TV? Today it's all just happy entertainment making money for the entertainment industry. Back then books and movies were far more grim, the concerns were genuinely darker, the consequences were greater.So Salinger and Bellow and Mailer and Jones and Bourjaily and Vonnegut are all looking in their novels for how a person can live a good life in a world stripped of goodness, and that concern drives the arts and popular entertainment of that time. I'd suggest the absence (or lessening) of those fears today is why our own books and movies and music is on the whole much "fluffier" (for want of a better word) today than back then. In the 40s and 50s and 60s we were looking for the answers. Today just about everyone out there thinks they know the answers.
Sign of the times!
Time to watch that again . . .
I didn't add it to my message, I guess I thought it was a given, but then I realized I wasn't on one of those absolutely annoying Anne Frank threads...recognition of the horrors,of the Holocaust also drives a great deal of that darkness in the art and entertainment of he Post-WWII period, along with the Bomb.And now we've got kids who find discussion of the Holocaust and reading the Diary to be just way too boring...a chore when they could be reading about sparkly vampires and girls with bows and arrows. Or not reading at all...
Well, we could always present it to them that the Nazis thought the Jews were vampires (there's a long tradition of vampire mythos in that region), hence the fixation on burning . . . *Yes, that was terrible and ridiculous, but I find the realization that so many (not all, but a noisy seeming-majority) of girls in that age group — and older — do seem that shallow*
If I wrote a story based on that premise, how many readers do you think would realize it was a bitter farce?
Perfect example with Strangelove, Renee!When's the last time you saw a movie end with the world blowing up? And it's a comedy!
I think children do not like force feeding. So school read books always have a raw deal, unless the teachers present them differently. I was lucky that I read all those books without teacher's recommendations.
I was a little girl during the time when, after every nightly newscast, a black screen with white letters and numbers appeared, enumerating the dead, wounded and missing for that day, that week, the year, and in toto for the Viet Nam war.The impact of that . . .
And all the photojournalism from Viet Nam.
But, in the last Iraq business, the administration blocked such images, even threatening punishment for releasing photos of soldiers' flag-draped caskets on their way home.
I've seen Nosferatu, and yes, I agree. The vampire was made to look like the stereotypical caricature of what that society deemed "Jewish."
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Perfect example with Strangelove, Renee!When's the last time you saw a movie end with the world blowing up? And it's a comedy!"
This also reminds me of Catch-22, also a comedy.
Renee forgets that Bush allowed embedded journalists with the troops. And the networks DID make daily causality counts even though more people were getting killed or injured on our highways just in Florida alone. Bush did place more emphasis on the privacy of our troops and their families by refusing to make a spectacle of flag draped coffins. Would you want the press taking pics of your dead son or daughter and splash pics of your weeping family on the front page? Have a little respect for our soldiers and their families. Bush did many things wrong, but he should be applauded for his respect and consideration of our military families and soldiers.
Lucie wrote: "I think children do not like force feeding. So school read books always have a raw deal, unless the teachers present them differently. I was lucky that I read all those books without teacher's rec..."In my school, The Diary of Anne Frank is presented in 8th grade in a way that fully immerses the students so that they will not forget. But they have a great teacher. That is the key!
S.W. wrote: "Bush did many things wrong, but he should be applauded for his respect and consideration of our military families and soldiers."Those weren't his motivations. He was hiding his dirty war from America. And I think you're wrong about parents here, too. Many of them would have wanted acknowledgement from the country for their loss, not sweeping it under the carpet. And then consider the shitty way Bush treated his veterans. Soldiers and their families meant absolutely nothing to George W. Bush.
Renee wrote: "Well, we could always present it to them that the Nazis thought the Jews were vampires (there's a long tradition of vampire mythos in that region), hence the fixation on burning . . . *Yes, that ..."
You're right, and the kids who do get it stand out. I also think that they believe it was so long ago and seems very unreal. Very different from when I was their age.
S.W. wrote: "Renee forgets that Bush allowed embedded journalists with the troops. And the networks DID make daily causality counts"And your so-called "embedded journalists"? Nothing but shills and hacks for the Bush war machine. There was precious little of anything we could call "journalism" happening in Iraq.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "What do you mean by "considering it was written in 1966"? Post-WWII was a time of far more alienation than presently. Concerns of nuclear destruction from the Bomb, the absence of God...these are f..."In 1966, I did not live in a world where God was dead. My mother was a teacher and they used to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag "one nation under God". When Martin Luther King died one of the children requested prayer for the family. She taught third grade and asked for prayer request. Praying in school was not banned. In fact when I went to school we had a Bible teacher that visited and taught us once a week in our class. My mother taught at an inner city public school and I went to a public school.
So to me this was progressive. But maybe not to you.
Cosmic wrote: "In 1966, I did not live in a world where God was dead."You didn't understand what was going on then in the world around you. And your personal experience didn't define the larger cultural experience in 1966 any more than it does today. Look at the literature and the art and entertainment of the period.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Those weren't his motivations. He was hiding his dirty war from America. And I think you're wrong about parents here, too. Many of them would have wanted acknowledgement from the country for their ..."Totally agree with you on this one!! War is about DEATH.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "You didn't understand what was going on then in the world around you. And your personal experience didn't define the larger cultural experience in 1966 any more than it does today. Look at the lite..."I think you maybe right. I was sheltered. But you bring up a very interesting point "Look at the literature and the art and entertainment of the period."
Because when I look at The Catcher and the Rye and point out the " literature and the art and entertainment of the period" you dismiss the allusions as irrelevant.
You should learn from Salinger and look at "the literature and the art and entertainment of the period." So you might be able to "understand what was going on then in the world" that led up to WW2.
Renee wrote: "I've seen Nosferatu, and yes, I agree. The vampire was made to look like the stereotypical caricature of what that society deemed "Jewish.""Why do you think they made this film? If the arts reflect the culture and times the Germans were living in then why this depiction?
Cosmic wrote: "Because when I look at The Catcher and the Rye and point out the " literature and the art and entertainment of the period" you dismiss the allusions as irrelevant."I don't think I've ever dismissed the allusions in Catcher as irrelevant. You're confusing me with someone else.
But neither do I agree with you in your attempts to read Catcher, a la The DaVinci Code, as if there is a secret encoded message about the Allies and the Axis hidden within the text and its allusions. But I've never quibbled with you online about it. You can keep digging all you like, and more power to you, but I don't think that's the way Salinger has written this novel.
He was, though, profoundly impacted by his experiences in WWII. He worked on Catcher as he made his way across Europe, and he saw some of the worst things possible that a human being could see there in terms of evil and the suffering and death it caused.
And so it makes sense that Holden identifies himself as an atheist, even though he understands and values the teachings of Jesus. And I think that goes a long way toward what is being said in that quotation Michael gave us from The Absurd Hero in American Fiction.
To return to the quote from Michael: "To act with morality and love in a universe in which God is dead (or, at least, in which historical preconceptions of God frequently seem invalid) is perhaps the most acute problem of our age." Isn't this what Franny is struggling with as well? And doesn't Zooey give her some help in figuring out some of those big questions she is struggling with? I think this is key with Salinger's work, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he has advanced these concerns in the works he had stowed away in his vault.
Yes, here is what Galloway has to say about Franny & Zooey:"The absurd vision which Zooey is finally able to impart to Franny is that everything in the world, no matter how base or corrupt, is sacred."
"Through Seymour's death, Zooey learns that the Fat Lady, the eternal vulgarian, must not be passed over for any mystical discipline. As Ihab Hassan has observed, 'Zooey's message constitutes high praise of life. It is the sound of humility, calling us to *this* world. The vulgarian and the outsider are reconciled, not in the momentary flash of a quixotic gesture, nor even in the exclusive heart of a mystical revelation, but in the constancy of love.'"
That's nice; I like that.I try to live by Zooey's words about the Fat Lady, but it's hard and I fail terribly.
Petergiaquinta wrote: ".But neither do I agree with you in your attempts to read Catcher, a la The DaVinci Code, as if there is a secret encoded message about the Allies and the Axis hidden within the text and its allusions. ."What are the allusions for or mean to you?
And what would it take for you to be convinced of a underlying message in the Catcher about war and conspiracy; to create them through media secret societies; and to harness more power and amass wealth?
Cosmic wrote: "what would it take for you to be convinced of a underlying message in the Catcher about war and conspiracy; to create them through media secret societies; and to harness more power and amass wealth?"There are already enough underlying messages for me in Catcher about how to live in a fallen world without adding crackpot theories that the book provides a hidden code about secret societies and conspiracies. That way lies madness, and Hinckley and Chapman have already done enough damage to the novel with that kind of thinking. I'm just not interested. Sorry.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Cosmic wrote: "what would it take for you to be convinced of a underlying message in the Catcher about war and conspiracy; to create them through media secret societies; and to harness more power a..."My sentiments exactly, and it isn't because I "lack imagination" or comprehension.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "There are already enough underlying messages for me in Catcher about how to live in a fallen world without adding crackpot theories that the book provides a hidden code about secret societies and conspiracies. That way lies madness, and Hinckley and Chapman have already done enough damage to the novel with that kind of thinking. I'm just not interested. Sorry. ...""That's just the trouble with all you morons. You never want to discuss anything. That's the way you can tell a moron. They never want to discuss anything intelligent-"
The Catcher In The Rye.
"The purpose of allusions in a literary work is essentially the same as that of all other types of metaphor-the development and revelation of character, structure, and theme - and, when skillfully used, it does all of these simultaneously. An allusion achieves its purposes through inviting a comparison and contrast of the context in which it is used with its original context. Allusion is distinguished from other varieties of metaphor or analogy by the greater complexity and potential it's context necessarily brings with it; it is a metaphor with an almost inexhaustible number of points of comparison to be developed.
The Catcher In The Rye "involves dozens of allusive contexts, all continually intersecting, modifying, qualifying one another."
Weldon Thornton Allusions In Ulysses An Annotated List.
Your response is a slap in the face to Salinger and his genius! To let someone, like Hinckley and Chapman, who had nothing to do with writing The Catcher In The Rye, determine how you will be able to study it is stupid. But if you believe that you have "to play the game according to the rules" continue to limit your vision.
Cosmic wrote: "Petergiaquinta wrote: "There are already enough underlying messages for me in Catcher about how to live in a fallen world without adding crackpot theories that the book provides a hidden code about..."I honestly think you need to write a non-fiction book presenting your case and self-publish it as an eBook. This venue/medium is inadequate for your intended purposes. You are beating your head against a brick wall here.
Make your case in a more effective way. It may even sell enough to make it worth your while.
Agree with Monty.I have no idea whether what you say is correct or not, but the sporadic information and random quotations doesn't help much.
You don't even need to self-publish. Just write a blog post with structured and logical arguments and I think you'd get more of the attention you'd like. It's difficult to accept a theory that, to me, comes off as speculative and incoherent.
I know I would read such a post, if you write it.
Cosmic wrote: "Petergiaquinta wrote: "There are already enough underlying messages for me in Catcher about how to live in a fallen world without adding crackpot theories that the book provides a hidden code about..."That is not what Peter said. You distorted it because you can't accept the fact that some people disagree with you. Find another outlet for your theories about the book.
If by "playing the game according to the rules," you mean adhering to accepted methods of literary interpretation and criticism, then I'll plead guilty. That's how I've been educated, and I've spent a lot of time reading lit crit and, in the case of Salinger, reading up on his interests, methods and concerns. I hardly think that makes me a moron, and I don't think that's what Holden is referring to there. And I've hardly shied away from intellectual conversations about the book; I've been talking Catcher on discussion threads for several years now. So that's a bunch of stuff and nonsense saying I'm unwilling to examine the complexities of text regarding this novel.You feel strongly about what you think you've found in the book. As the others have encouraged, go with it. But I'm not interested in this methodology of interpretation; I don't share your conclusions about where these allusions lead, and I do think that Hinckley and Chapman's twisted approaches to the novel share some of your concerns and interpretations. So, instead of arguing with you, I merely decline to participate in your discussions of the relevance you find in all the numbers and OSS-enburger, and AIG, etc.
You are definitely correct about one of your big concerns. Catcher is a post-WWII novel written by a vet who was profoundly impacted by his experiences in war. So people should talk more about Salinger in the same way they talk about Vonnegut, Heller, Bourjaily and Jones. And this is often not the case; instead, Catcher gets lumped into the same category as teenage angst novels and Bildungsromans, and the concerns about the destruction of WWII that Salinger uses to shade or texture the world of the novel get lost, even though DB, like Salinger, landed at Normandy, and at one point in the book the Caulfield siblings discuss war poetry and decide Dickinson knows more as a poet about the subject than Brooke, who was a vet himself.
So yeah, I am interested in the allusions Salinger uses in the novel. But allusions are used to work toward a larger idea that holds up to scrutiny. The strands of the novel come together to reinforce meaning. The genius of Salinger, as you put it, isn't in throwing a bunch of random ideas, numbers and names at the wall and seeing what sticks. He's carefully working toward that final scene in the park with Phoebe and the last two pages in the asylum after that. And Holden's final, profound realizations in the novel about how he needs to let life move forward and what he needs to do with his own life don't have much to do, as I can see it, with secret societies and conspiracies.
That should be AIG, not ING. I'll fix when I'm on a different device.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvCXO..."
LOL !!