The Catcher in the Rye
question
Judging too Quickly?
Demetrius
Apr 18, 2014 09:53AM
Are those who call Catcher overrated or terrible judging too quickly without deeply thinking of what it means? Or are they right? Fiction is for pure entertainment with no thinking required?
I ask this because the author was writing the book in-between being on WW2 battlefield and suffered a breakdown and saw a psych same as Holden.
I ask this because the author was writing the book in-between being on WW2 battlefield and suffered a breakdown and saw a psych same as Holden.
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Demetrius wrote: "Are those who call Catcher overrated or terrible judging too quickly without deeply thinking of what it means? Or are they right? Fiction is for pure entertainment with no thinking required?"
Fiction is different things for different people and depends on their curiosity and their capacity and willingness to go deeper than a superficial reading.
The vast majority of mankind go through life as a stone skipping across the water blissfully unaware of what lies below.
Only when something happens to knock them off their inertia-driven trajectory do they slow down to take a deeper look.
How any work of art is interpreted is a function of the life experience of the person observing, and no two of us are identical.
Literature is a smorgasbord, and what people choose to fill their plate is a matter of individual taste and appetite. Few will select only one item, and some people are more adventurous that others.
NO one can assess The Catcher in the Rye for all readers. It's an assessment each must make for him/er-self.
Fiction is different things for different people and depends on their curiosity and their capacity and willingness to go deeper than a superficial reading.
The vast majority of mankind go through life as a stone skipping across the water blissfully unaware of what lies below.
Only when something happens to knock them off their inertia-driven trajectory do they slow down to take a deeper look.
How any work of art is interpreted is a function of the life experience of the person observing, and no two of us are identical.
Literature is a smorgasbord, and what people choose to fill their plate is a matter of individual taste and appetite. Few will select only one item, and some people are more adventurous that others.
NO one can assess The Catcher in the Rye for all readers. It's an assessment each must make for him/er-self.
I'm not sure you can pigeonhole the many readers who dislike this book into categories like that. Good fiction can be thought-provoking and entertaining; in fact, I believe most of it is.
It's entirely possible for a reader to comprehend what Salinger was saying in this book without enjoying his writing style. To imply that those who don't like this particular book are unable or unwilling to think it through is, frankly, insulting. Catcher in the Rye is not the only book to deal with adolescent mental illness; other authors have dealt with this issue in ways that some readers will find more appealing than Salinger's very dark scenarios.
Salinger's own PTSD certainly enlightened his writing, but it's not a requirement that all readers judge the book as great because of that.
It's entirely possible for a reader to comprehend what Salinger was saying in this book without enjoying his writing style. To imply that those who don't like this particular book are unable or unwilling to think it through is, frankly, insulting. Catcher in the Rye is not the only book to deal with adolescent mental illness; other authors have dealt with this issue in ways that some readers will find more appealing than Salinger's very dark scenarios.
Salinger's own PTSD certainly enlightened his writing, but it's not a requirement that all readers judge the book as great because of that.
Demetrius Sherman
Didn't mean to insult. Some people read purely for entertainment. I meant to pose the question without judging.
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