The Catcher in the Rye
discussion
The Most Overrated Books
Monty wrote;"This well covered in Benson's biography. After the huge success of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck had enemies in his home area of Salinas and Monterrey, and nearby San Francisco was also dangerous for him. He had had death threats and was licensed to carry a pistol. People were openly rude to him and his family as well. His parents were dead and, though he remained close to his younger sister, relations with is two older sisters were not pleasant."
Wow- I knew he made people angry with Grapes of Wrath, but didn't know how much. I think that while arguably East of Eden could be his best, Grapes of Wrath could very well be his most important work.
Karen wrote: "Read it again, many of us loved it as older readers also!"Mega ditto!
Great points and an excellent article, thanks guys. Holden was not Peter Pan (or Michael Jackson). He knew he couldn't prevent "growing up" and feared losing himself in the process---a crisis of identity. Must we sacrifice the purity and innocence of youth as we mature? Holden's message resonates more with me now as I approach 50---in fact it haunts me.
Michael wrote: "Check out Daniel Mendelsohn's essay on Catcher from yesterday's "Bookends" feature of the NYT Book Review::"When I reread “The Catcher in the Rye” a few years ago, I was unmoved by the emotional ..."
I mistrust that "grow up" dictum. And be what? Staid, stuffy, all-knowing, pipe-smoking, dressed in boxy sexless clothing . . .? I could go on. Sometimes the person saying that just seems jealous of people who are having fun, or feel passionate about something.
The Great Gatsby! Surely not
Kallie wrote: "I mistrust that "grow up" dictum. And be what? Staid, stuffy, all-knowing, pipe-smoking, dressed in boxy sexless clothing . . .? I could go on. Sometimes the person saying that just seems jealous of people who are having fun, or feel passionate about something."It shouldn't escape notice that Holden was eagerly embracing the "candy" of adulthood--sex, smoking, booze, nightclub music, dancing, flirting, theater--while agonizing over uncomfortable necessities like social hypocrisy and rationalization.
Lynda wrote: "The Great Gatsby! Surely not"Doesn't make sense to me either.
Karen wrote: "I think that while arguably East of Eden could be his best, Grapes of Wrath could very well be his most important work."Yup. GOW came at just the right time to hit a bullseye, right between the eyes of unregulated capitalism, exposing its ugly underside.
The impact of this book is unmeasurable. It may have prevented a revolution, for communism had gained a foothold and was growing.
More than any other writer, Steinbeck showed the world that America's, the economic powerhouse, had holes in it with gruesome humanitarian consequences.
And now the holes are reappearing.
Monty wrote;"The impact of this book is unmeasurable. It may have prevented a revolution, for communism had gained a foothold and was growing."
Wasn't Steinbeck considered anti-capitalusm and maybe suspected of being communust because of this book?
Karen wrote: "Wasn't Steinbeck considered anti-capitalusm and maybe suspected of being communist because of this book? "Not just GOW, but also his earlier work, especially In Dubious Battle, involving a fruit pickers' strike aided by "the party," which was interpreted to be the Communist Party by most readers.
Steinbeck was never a party member but he studied communism and went to a meeting or two as part of his book research. This is well documented by a professor at San Jose State who did the voice-over on the GOW collector's edition DVD. It isn't clear whether his first wife Carol Henning was member.
Despite the truth, huge corporate farms in California's Central Valley tried to paint him as a communist, as they do to this day to anyone who tries to help the migrant laborers on whom their profits are so dependent. It is a pretty paranoid bunch. I worked with them for a number of years. When I said I liked Steinbeck one of them said he was a communist who exaggerated workers' conditions to sell books.
Steinbeck came out clearly against communism in public statements after visiting Russia and witnessing first-hand the brutal way artists and writers were controlled.
Times have changed. The rabid John Bircher today mainstreamed into the Republican Party will invariably label anyone who criticizes capitalism as anti-capitalist, socialist or communist.
Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "Wasn't Steinbeck considered anti-capitalusm and maybe suspected of being communist because of this book? "Not just GOW, but also his earlier work, especially In Dubious Battle, invo..."
Somehow I can't picture you working in that environment!! I love Steinbeck.
Cemre, I'm interested in what Joyce Carol Oates has to say about Salinger and wouldn't have known she had published an opinion, if it weren't for you. I've tried to read her novels since high school but have always quit early on. I vaguely recall a few short stories but my impression is that I didn't like them. Of course, I should go back and figure out exactly what irritates me--if I still don't like what she does.
Often when I return to a writer who failed to capture me the first time, I'm surprised--how could I have missed this?--and find I can't put the writing down. She writes in various styles, I know, but something about her writng, possibly what I saw as an overarching construct, made me feel I didn't have time.
Her essay in The New Yorker about her husband's death, however, affected me very much.
Cemre wrote: "Is there anybody who finds the worldwide popularity of the fairy tale "Cinderella " interesting? It is not the creepiest , the cleverest or the most magical fairy tale of the Western World (let alo..."I think the pauper to princess thing has a lot of appeal for many folks.
There's a school of thought (one that I find compelling) that a lot of fairy tales have a deep-rooted psychological basis, especially in their earlier, un-Disney versions. Personally, I've always found Little Red Riding Hood a pretty obvious metaphor for female sexuality, and the whole Goldilocks thing not very subtle....
Snow White, too...that particular fairy tale has popped up in popular film recently in a couple of distinctly different incarnations, but if you're a Gaiman fan you might want to take a look at his spin on the story in "Snow, Glass, Apples" (1994), which was published in the collection Smoke and Mirrors (1998). Creepy! And, as is usually the case with Gaiman, very well done...
Cemre wrote: "What do you think about Joyce Carol Oates' views on Salinger ? :"Salinger's great, obsessive theme was the moral rootlessness of contemperory American materialism and it's corrosive effect upon p..."
I think she's right-on with regard to Franny & Zooey, Seymour, and Nine Stories. I prefer Oates' literary analyses and essays to her fiction, except that some of the short stories are brilliant, but like Kathleen feel I may have missed something and want to try her again. And I want to read the entire article you reference. But I'm also curious to know what you see about Salinger that she missed, Cemre.
Gary wrote: "Cemre wrote: "Is there anybody who finds the worldwide popularity of the fairy tale "Cinderella " interesting? It is not the creepiest , the cleverest or the most magical fairy tale of the Western ..."I think there's something to that, but also remember being intrigued by the theory that life for children was much less protective and more dangerous back in the days before childhood became sentimentalized, and that's where a lot of the Grimm themes come from -- folk tales about real danger. I'll try to find the source for that.
Cemre wrote: "What do you think about Joyce Carol Oates' views on Salinger ? :It's a very narrow perspective of Salinger's work, made even more painful by the fact that she had written it just upon his death. ( I must note that ı haven't read any book by Oates, ı don't know that much about her, ı just don't agree with her view on this.)."
Agreed, but it's not surprising. What people, writers included, take away from any work of art is a measure of what they, themselves, bring to the experience. Oates views reflect what she is capable of comprehending, and Salinger, IMHO, is light years ahead of her. I've read only three of her short stories, none of which grabbed me. Assigned reading in writing classes.
Nice lady though. Heard her interviewed on NPR.
Karen wrote: "Somehow I can't picture you working in that environment!! I love Steinbeck.""I was misinformed." (from Casablanca)
Monty J wrote: "Cemre wrote: "What do you think about Joyce Carol Oates' views on Salinger ? :It's a very narrow perspective of Salinger's work, made even more painful by the fact that she had written it just up..."
So you see nothing worth considering at all in what she says about Salinger? Maybe you could say more, about how her interpretation is limited? I don't think her fiction compares to Salinger's but that doesn't mean she has nothing worthwhile to say about his fiction.
I have over the years read JCO's ss and novels and have found all of them fatally flawed for different reasons. The first was a short story that I read in the early 70's and her artifice was too self-revelatory. I suspect she had been reading Victorian literature,ie. Hardy, Eliot etc. because she had made use of climate atmospherics to mirror the tension between two characters argument/disagreements taking place in a kitchen. She so very obviously brought on the storm clouds and darkening skies when the relations between the two characters became overly testy-then the sun burst out in its splendor as they smoothed over their differences. The mood was so heavily contrived that I thought, hmmmm. interesting writer....too bad her editor didn't catch that one.In my second reading of her work, the antogonist/principal character was a certifiable paranoid/schizophrenic whose meanderings of thought were so intelligible that I cringed throughout. I could not but help compare her ineptness at reproducing delusionary thought to the skillful writing of Doris Lessing's most famous book.
In my third reading of her, she writes of a marginally retarded young woman who becomes a nurse's aid, is seduced by a doctor at her hospital, then self-aborts the fetus. Sorry, folks, a person with an IQ of 70 is not only unlikely to be a nurse's aid but wouldn't have the capacity for spatial relationships necessary for surgery to have done the deed herself. That clothes hanger would have been a lethal weapon inducing her own death.
So, JCO, please think through your novels better. Get out of your ivory tower and experience more of life, slow down your rate of production and improve its quality. Please, you could reach the top of your profession.
Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "Somehow I can't picture you working in that environment!! I love Steinbeck.""I was misinformed." (from Casablanca)"
Oh, you answered me, ha ha. Misinformed, yes.
Cemre wrote: "@KallieI just hate one sentence long, dismissive and simplistic summaries of a writer's entire work. Her interpretion also excludes the feelings of the reader. I wasn't thinking about East Asian r..."
Thanks for responding, Cemre. I don't see what Oates said as dismissive so much as sympathetic (though that doesn't mean she isn't over-simplifying him).
Cemre wrote: "@KallieI just hate one sentence long, dismissive and simplistic summaries of a writer's entire work. Her interpretion also excludes the feelings of the reader. I wasn't thinking about East Asian..."I'm with Kallie...that's not being dismissive at all; if anything it's "expansive." Especially if we're struggling with the perception by many readers that Catcher is merely a novel about "teenage angst." Now that's dismissive and reductive...
Most lit crit doesn't care much about reader response. But that doesn't mean that Oates is dismissive of the way you responded to the novel on a personal level when you read it. She's just engaging the text on a different level from you. In her own high falutin kind of way I think she's saying much the same thing you are.
Kallie wrote: "So you see nothing worth considering at all in what she says about Salinger? Maybe you could say more, about how her interpretation is limited?"Oates: "Salinger's great, obsessive theme was the moral rootlessness of contemperory (sic) American materialism and it's corrosive effect upon precocious, highly sensitive children and adolescents whose religious yearnings were both esoteric ( eastern, mystic) and sentimental (narcissistic, naively self regarding)."
If she had said "society" and left it there, instead of limiting the scope to "highly sensitive children..." (and the rest, all of which I underlined,) I could agree with her. It's hard to evaluate such a brief comment out of context.
I don't agree with some of her other, again out of context, comments I picked up on Google. She's supposed to have said Salinger had "an extremely inflated vision of his own talent,".
She has a right to her opinion, but I happen to agree with Salinger. I question whether Oates has the depth to fully comprehend Salinger, and I think his soon to be published works will make her eat these words. My expectations may be inflated, but I hope not. My reasoning follows.
I have high expectations of Salinger because of the immense suffering he endured and was exposed to during the war, something no other American author perhaps since the days of Milton--including Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald--can hold a candle to. Even Shakespeare. Three years of combat experience in many of the most horrific WWII battles broke him enough to put him in a mental hospital. Hemingway's combat experience lasted only a matter of weeks.
I think a writer of Salinger's obvious talent and intellect, after being repeatedly traumatized by suffering, becomes inoculated with an exceptional depth of humanitarian vision.
What many people perceive as reclusiveness and lousy parenting skills I see as dedication to the impossible task of making sense of what he witnessed and rendering it into accessible art on the page.
Compared with Salinger, Oates and most other writers seem handicapped.
From what I can tell by reading Wikipedia and listening to her on NPR, Oates' exposure to life was severely limited compared with Salinger. She relies heavily on what she has read and learned in a classroom.
Her 3 stories I read bear this out. She wrote a modernized version of Chekhov's "The Lady With The Dog." She converted a Look Magazine series about an Arizona killer and rapist into a cautionary tale and did something similar with newspaper reports about a family killed by escaped convicts in Florida.
Has she ever experienced or been close to a place of significant human suffering--other than the death of her husband (about which I heard she did her best writing)? Wikipedia doesn't think so: "Oates grew up in the working-class farming community of Millersport, New York, and characterized hers as "a happy, close-knit and unextraordinary family for our time, place and economic status". Then she got a scholarship and went off to Syracuse and academia.
Oates is an excellent writer. She's prolific and knows how to get published, but compared with Salinger and writers like Ernest (Nobel) Hemingway and Eugene (a Nobel and 4 Pulitzers) O'Neill, her vision is limited.
Geoffrey wrote: " Get out of your ivory tower and experience more of life, slow down your rate of production and improve its quality. Please, you could reach the top of your profession. "Honestly, I wrote my last post before reading this. Amazing how we agree on this one.
Re: MontyBut you know...go through Salinger's life's work and check it out...Salinger really isn't interested in "society" as a whole. We can imagine what kinds of material his publishers may unleash on the world over the course of the next how many years, but right now we only have his published work, and that's what Oates is referring to.
Seymour Glass is a young adult, 21 tops? And he's arrested in his development, very much a "precocious, highly sensitive" young person (and probably the closest character to demonstrating the suffering and damage that Salinger himself experienced). The Caulfield children, Sunny, Jane Gallagher, Franny and Zoey, the other Glass children, the young people of the short stories and the unauthorized released material...Oates is right: it's almost all about the effects of this corrosive materialism on these highly sensitive young people. Any extrapolation to "society" at large is on our parts as readers...Salinger is not extending his artistic vision to society as a whole. The adult world is almost entirely missing from his work, ineffective, threatening or malignantly harmful.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "The adult world is almost entirely missing from his work, ineffective, threatening or malignantly harmful."If you want to take Salinger literally, I might agree, but:
"The child is father to the man."
Deep inside each of us lives our childhood experience. By writing about and to our innocent inner selves, Salinger is reaching the adults we became.
Every adult prostitute was once a Sunny. Corporate executives and mid-managers were once a Stradlater or an Ackley or a James Castle. Mothers and working women were once a Jane Gallagher or a Sally Hayes or a Phoebe. We were all once innocent and I suspect most of us lament the loss of it.
By writing about the loss of innocence, Salinger forces those of us who care to revisit how we lost our innocence and thereby re-evaluate how we might live the rest of our lives. Will we, for example, be more empathetic?
I don't see this as extrapolation. I see it as Salinger's artful way of reaching deep into our souls.
And we haven't even seen half of his work. We're judging him on the preamble.
Petergiaquinta: "Salinger is not extending his artistic vision to society as a whole. The adult world is almost entirely missing from his work, ineffective, threatening or malignantly harmful." And this in itself is extraordinary, and offers a point-of-view for which I've always been grateful.As for Oates, I don't see how we can know what anyone has experienced of the world, or the value of that experience. Jane Austen wrote all her novels from a corner of the family sitting room. I don't compare Oates to her, but I think "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" is a brilliant story (maybe you have to have been a teen-age girl to appreciate that one).
Besides, her essays on literature have prompted me to read and re-read Melville, among others. "Pierre" and "The Confidence Man" are nearly forgotten, but not if Oates has anything to say about it. Not only that, but she has written appreciatively about people like Mohammed Ali, and interviewed him and his trainer for days at a time. I would say she is a remarkable asset to American letters for many reasons, and do not at all agree with dismissing her as an "Ivory Tower" intellectual.
In all the disdain the Ivory Tower gets, we forget that its vantage gives a different perspective, an aerial view, if you will. It's a valuable POV, as long as we remember it is just that — a point of view. And then there's the Tower image in tarot, whose images are archetypes.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Salinger is not extending his artistic vision to society as a whole."How do we know this? A writer has limited control over how his work is taken by society.
For example Golding's Lord of the Flies, which he wrote as a rebuttal to Ballantyne's The Coral Island. After dozens of rejections the novel was reluctantly published. It was a flop until "society" recognized it as a warning about fascism and nuclear war. Golding was embarrassed by it until then.
"The adult world is almost entirely missing from his work..."
It's been too long, decades, since I read Franny and Zooey and Nine Stories, but CiTR has plenty of adult characters. I suppose Maurice could be considered mildly sinister, but there's old Mr. Spencer and the football coach Ed Banky and Ernest Morrow's mom on the train and the nuns and the tourist ladies and cabbies and the heroic Mr. Antolini, whom Holden went paranoid over for just patting him on the head. Each of these adults evokes some reaction in Holden, sometimes positive and sometimes critical.
Kallie wrote: "Petergiaquinta: "Salinger is not extending his artistic vision to society as a whole. The adult world is almost entirely missing from his work, ineffective, threatening or malignantly harmful." A..."Three out of three is out for the count as far as I am concerned. I've not read anything by her that I can applaud. I wish I could. I wish I could join your ranks and exclaim to the world, or to these message threads, Hurrah for JCO, she's recognized as one of our precious literary assets and I, for one, am in complete agreement and appreciation, but sadly I can't. Perhaps I can find something of hers that I would like to read and value, but you know what, fool me once.....
There are too many better writers out there whose work I have enjoyed more than hers. Vollman's early work and Carolyn Chute's as well, Mary Caponegro, Alice Walker, TC Boyle, Gupta Jahiri, the list goes on. Perhaps I am not giving her the chance she deserves, but one thing I have learned in life is that unfortunately first impressions usually bear out and in this case, thrice and you're out.
And yes, Monty, we do agree as much as we disagree. Perhaps even more but I have a bad tendency to emphasize the disagreements. It adds to my sense of individuality.
I would like to add one more name to be named on the above list. I recall reading a collection of ss by an Afro American writer by the name of Jones who won the Pulitzer or Natronal Book back in the first years of this century. Can anyone recommend any of his novels? I immensely enjoyed the ss collection.
re Monty:Of course Salinger as an artist is writing for society as a whole. He's not writing exclusively (or at all) for these precocious sensitive young people that he examines in his works. He's writing for all of us, or at least for the thoughtful, sensitive readers among us. And we should identify with Holden and his other young characters...unless we've grown into one of these adult figures. But in his novel and stories he is exploring these precocious, sensitive young people, and this is the world he concerns himself with as far as his artistic vision goes. Those adults you mentioned are tangential to Holden's experience, which is the focus of Salinger's book here. Each fits into one of the categories I mentioned. The one adult fleshed out in any real dimension is Mr. Antolini, and he lets Holden down, too.
I'm doing a lot of agreeing with Kallie, but the Jane Austen example is perfect. We shouldn't overstate the personal experience of authors and their art. This after all is why it is art; it's influenced by experience but not dependent on it. One need not experience something to write powerfully and artistically about it. Shakespeare comes to mind, in addition to Austen. The Oxfordians want to deny his authorship based on his biography, a myopic stance that denies the power of the imagination.
And to bring this back to Catcher...Holden and his brothers agree that Emily Dickinson (who rarely left her yard) is the better war poet than Rupert Brooke, a WW1 vet.
Geoffrey wrote: "Hurrah for JCO, she's recognized as one of our precious literary assets ..."Actually, I wrote nothing of the sort. I wrote that she has contributed to American letters, with her essays and literary criticism particularly though I have not taken to her fiction as yet and may not ever. That is very different from calling her a 'precious literary asset'.
Kallie wrote: "I think "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" is a brilliant story (maybe you have to have been a teen-age girl to appreciate that one). "This is one of the stories I was referring to, and it illustrates what I've been saying about Oates. It is a well-written story and one that needed to be told, especially during the '60s, when women were asserting independence.
What reader would not feel repulsed by villain Arnold Friend and outraged by his actions? The story reflects Oates' passion for writing and a certain engagement with humanity. But I didn't feel transported, perhaps because she lifted the story from a Life Magazine article written by Don Moser the year before "her" story won an award. It is a borrowed story.
Moser's well-researched article, "The Pied Piper of Tuscon: He Cruised in a Golden Car, Looking for the Action," was rich in detail, including facts that Charles Schmid, the model for Arnold Friend, wore face makeup and stuffed newspaper into his boots to appear taller. And he, too, drove a beat-up car painted gold. [Moser's article is excerpted on page 1650 of The Story and Its Writer, 2007, Bedford/St. Martins.]
Oates didn't have to leave her chair except to freshen her tea. If she had spent any significant time in Tuscon she would know that there was not, never has been, never will be "humid night air of July" in that arid desert city unless it rains within a half hour.*
I have two daughters but had trouble connecting with Oates version. Moser's version explored the parents' point of view and drew me in despite being a magazine article.
Oates' version felt as if she were straining for realism, especially in the climax scene that was entirely hers--at Connie's house after Arnold Friend arrives.
It's one thing to grab a police blotter and do some research, visit the locale and do interviews. But borrowing so liberally from someone else's work can distance an author from reality. For a piece of literature to work for me I like/need to feel in it. Realism makes that possible.
I also was puzzled by Oates' dedication of the story to Bob Dylan. Research later told me the story was inspired by his lyrics in "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." Looking back over the story, evidence can be seen of the influence of those lyrics, but it's a distraction to do so. Mention of Dylan is a gimmick. The story should stand on its own. If a writer has to name drop and point to connections, it's a sign of weakness.
None of this can detract from Oates' accomplishments and contributions to literature. They speak for themselves. But when what I've read of her work is set alongside CiTR, it simply fades. And for her to criticize him rings hollow.
It's her job as a teacher to criticize other writers, but a conflict of interest arises when a teacher is also an author in the genre she teaches.
I hope Salinger's future publications don't let me down.
* Oops, an apology is in order. I just re-read the story, finding no indication of locale other than what can be extrapolated from a term like "shopping plaza," a north-northeastern term, and couple of references to humidity, which excludes arid climates like the high plains and mountains. This is what happens once a reader learns a story is derived rather than original.
Monty J wrote: "Kallie wrote: "I think "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" is a brilliant story (maybe you have to have been a teen-age girl to appreciate that one). "This is one of the stories I was ref..."
Monty, as we all know, the experience of fiction is individual and complex. I didn't know about the Tucson guy and why would I have cared about the Life article? I did not find the story, which I read some time ago, straining for realism; quite the opposite. It was a cautionary tale, far more Gothic than realistic, that for me related to how young women fool themselves into seeing what they want to see in a man who may really be creepy as can be. I remember reading the story, and its imagery of boy morphing into monster, to this day and that is why I referred to it as brilliant. Was that transformation of a girl's point of view in the article? I doubt it and the fact that you don't agree about the story doesn't alter my experience. I also don't see how dislike of Oates' fiction invalidates her essays about American life and literature. Shall we take that further and dismiss the work of essayists who write about fiction, but don't write any themselves?
Kallie wrote: " I also don't see how dislike of Oates' fiction invalidates her essays about American life and literature."Perhaps you missed the following, toward the end of my post: "None of this can detract from Oates' accomplishments and contributions to literature. They speak for themselves."
I didn't say I "dislike" Oates fiction. Again, my words: "It is a well-written story and one that needed to be told, especially during the '60s, when women were asserting independence."
But if Oates can criticize she can stand being criticized. It comes with the territory. Seldom do any two readers have the same experience in reading a story.
And the writers' curse is to pick at other people's writing.
Monty J wrote: "Kallie wrote: " I also don't see how dislike of Oates' fiction invalidates her essays about American life and literature."Perhaps you missed the following, toward the end of my post: "None of thi..."
I thought you were discounting her interpretation of Salinger on the basis of not liking her fiction. Sorry if I misunderstood.
Monty J wrote: "Kallie wrote: " I also don't see how dislike of Oates' fiction invalidates her essays about American life and literature."Perhaps you missed the following, toward the end of my post: "None of thi..."
I thought you and Geoffrey were saying that you discount her remarks on Salinger because you don't like her fiction. Maybe I misunderstood. I am also a writer and what writer doesn't know that criticism is part of writing?
In defense of Catcher in the Rye.When I first read this book, I was spellbound. Here was another person who was as confused, anxious, angry and as out of his element as I felt. I have read and reread this book over the years and each time I come back to it. I can see how I have moved on and matured and come to terms with some of the anxiety and turmoil I felt as a teenager. I still regard this as a masterpiece, as is Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird, the other two books I've found word re-reading.
Kallie wrote: "I thought you were discounting her interpretation of Salinger on the basis of not liking her fiction. Sorry if I misunderstood."Accepted. And I, in my blind haste to shed light on Salinger could have shown more appreciation for Oates, for which I apologize. What she did with "Where Are You Going..." showed technical brilliance and depth of humanitarian insight, especially toward young women.
You folks are forcing me to become more educated on Salinger to develop more fully a theme that resonates with me regarding the empathetic insight connected with an author's sensitization to suffering, either from personal experience or by witnessing it firsthand rather than reading about it.
In some cultures, particularly the Middle East (here come the flame throwers), people seem so conditioned to retaliation in response to perceived wrongs and suffering that they fail to recognize the self-perpetuating natural consequences of this mind-set. Writers can and have changed such toxic ways of thinking.
During the Great Depression, John Steinbeck was sent as a journalist to cover the plight of migrant workers in the San Joaquin Valley. Not satisfied to merely report on the suffering he witnessed, he devoted months to a book that could relieve that suffering. It worked.
When I read CiTR I feel similar forces at work, though well concealed, which speaks to Salinger's art.
To defend my thesis, I must return to the book again, chapter by chapter isolating examples of empathetic intention.
My chief attraction to Oates' "Where Are You Going..." lies in her recognition of humanitarian story potential in a magazine article and a willingness to realize that potential in the finest tradition of great literature. We need more of such writing.
This is what makes literature important to me.
Cemre wrote: "Is there anybody who finds the worldwide popularity of the fairy tale "Cinderella " interesting?"I liked that it featured a dysfunctional family and an example of toxic mothering in the stepmother, but objected to having the heroine looking to an idealistic handsome Prince for her rescue and fulfillment rather than her own initiative and ingenuity. The story also focuses too much attention on female physical appearance and could lead to an eating disorder.
Didn't want my two girls to read it, but got overruled.
Dorothy wrote: "In defense of Catcher in the Rye.When I first read this book, I was spellbound. Here was another person who was as confused, anxious, angry and as out of his element as I felt. I have read and rer..."
Good for you for re-reading it over the years too! I also loved the book and re-read it recently as an older person. It's wonderful to have a different perspective with age, and I enjoyed it just as much as when I was younger. Thanks for your post.
don wrote: "I've read "Catcher in the Rye", first at 15and at least once every five years since.
I like it, always have.
Tried to read every thing by "J.D. Salinger"
,including "22 Stories" and pretty much en..."
It is a matter of preference, but I think one can read those stories at every age and enjoy them.
THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING "CATCHER IN THE RYE"! I will never fully understand why people find this book to be so profound and beautiful. Really just a bad plotline with teachers trying to cover it up with "symbolism". Seemed kind of scarring for 10th grade English class to me!
Kayla wrote: "THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING "CATCHER IN THE RYE"! I will never fully understand why people find this book to be so profound and beautiful. Really just a bad plotline with teachers trying to cover it u..."The book is over the heads of some teachers. Perhaps this review will help: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Kallie wrote: "Geoffrey wrote: "Hurrah for JCO, she's recognized as one of our precious literary assets ..."Actually, I wrote nothing of the sort. I wrote that she has contributed to American letters, with her..."
Kallie
I was not referring to anything you specifically had written but the overall gist of adulation she is accorded by the literati of USA
MontyYours is exactly what I have surmised about JCO. She hasn't lived her stories well enough to write of them with unquestioning authenticity. Yes, there's a sense of regurgitation about the work I've read as if she were trying to upstage another's work, better felt but deficient of her finely tuned literary talents.
From time to time I come across one of those yearly anthologies of ss, BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1999, the OHenry ss anthologies or what not, as they offer some of the best of each years literary efforts. I would read more of them but I live far from the English speaking world and the English libraries don't have the number of volumes US libraries have. Of the four or five anthologies I have read in the last 10 years, I was most impressed with Amy Tan's anthology.Tan is a writer whose craft doesn't particularly impress me. JOY LUCK CLUB is written in a style not quite there for me. The movie was one which impressed me more than the novel. But as an editor, she has everyone beat. Her selection of ss was the best, most interesting, most humane of all the anthologies I have read.
JCO may very well be great at literary criticism. I don't know, not having read any of hers. But I do find it interesting to note how divergent our talents are. Some are great artists, mediocre critics, good editors and every variation of those.
One of the worst anthologies I've read was that of Nadine Gordimers anthology done back in the 60's in conjunction with the UN. I've had mixed reaction to her work. Whereas her short story about the political assassin of a Scandanavian peace politician was absolutely brilliant, other work by her has left me cold.
I've always thought "Joy Luck Club" was one of Tan's weaker books. "The Hundred Secret Senses" is, I thought, her best work so far.
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"am actually scared to re-read it though based on a past thread from far back. Apparently some people who have read the book a second time LOVED the book as a teenager but despised it as an adult. I'd rather leave happy memories and leave it at that, not let the legacy of enjoying it leave my mind just in case that should ever happen..."
Read it again, many of us loved it as older readers also!
And I agree with Monty, Holden is not resisting adulthood, but he is afraid of growing up at the same time. He wants to- he's just having a hard time finding his way.