JD Salinger

[lagilman]

On this day in 1986, we lost the crew --and the dream -- of Challenger.

Today we have lost J.D. Salinger, who has died at age 91 -- although some might say we lost him long before, to his own quirks and traumas. Loved or loathed, his work -- most famously Catcher in the Rye --changed the game in ways most writers only dream about.



(I loathed CitR, btw. Thought the writing was brilliant but so relentlessly negative and unlikeable that you took nothing away save a sense of grimy displeasure. I feel much the same way about Bret Easton Ellis, yes. Like HEAs, there's only so much dispirited self- and species-specific hatred I can handle before I go "enough already, I got it., thanks")

Comments

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

We lost Howard Zinn to day or yesterday. So sad.

[girasole.livejournal.com]

Because I teach Catcher in the Rye in my graduate YA literature class, I have thought about Holden a lot. I first read Salinger in college, in the early 1960s, and I was blown away - found everything else by Salinger there was, and wrote a paper on him.

I read Holden again in my mid-thirties, and found him a smarmy, self-pitying wanker, and wanted to swat him upside the head and say, with Cher, "Snap out of it!"

In my 50s, when I was planning the YA lit course, I picked up Catcher again, to see where it led me. I was filled with pity and tenderness for Holden. He needed care, and a mom. I so wanted to take care of him.

There's not world enough and time to read everything, let alone reread everything. But I am fascinated with how my reactions changed over the decades. My students' reactions vary even more widely.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

I first read him in 8th grade and had your mid-thirties reaction, but then I grew up in NYC and knew kids like him. Very boring.

Reread it again in my '40s and my reaction didn't change. Environment is everything, I suppose.

[barb-krasnoff.livejournal.com]

I also grew up in NYC, and went to a high school that was on the edge of a slum. I knew a lot of kids who were growing up in a nasty, dangerous environment (and school occasionally got dangerous as well), so my general attitude towards Holden was "You think you got problems?"

I was, I think, 13 or 14 when I read it.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

I read Howl by Alan Ginsberg as a freshman. I hated it. I read it again as a Master's student. I loved it. I spoke to me. Go figure.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

I had the same reaction in the same sequence for this one, too. But then I think Howl may last longer than Holden.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

At last! Someone else who feels the way I did about CitR! I maintain that teens who have to read it for school like it so much b/c it has cuss words in it. *g*

[lagilman]

I have an unproven suspicion that if you're over a certain age, CitR was an eye-opening revelation of a groundbreaker, and if you're under that age, it was the granddaddy of an entire movement where there should only have been an effective trickle. It can make a huge difference to how you approach a book, especially as a teenager.

[lagilman]

we're a month apart in age, so that supports my theory... *grin*

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

Over on another forum, someone in their 60s just told me I was "too young to appreciate" the book, b/c by the time I came along, there were plenty of other coming-of-age stories out there.

I'm not sure I buy that.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Holden never comes of age. He's just a jerk. Scalzi has a wonderful description of him somewhere on his blog as a 50 year old alcoholic advertising exec on his third marriage.

I think the key is more what type of reader you are rather than what generation you are or how old you were when you read the book. If you're a genre reader, chances are you read books where the spunky young heroine or hero actually deals with their problem rather than whine about it. If you prefer a more introspective book you probably appreciate the whining.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I loved CitR as a teen, and I still like it today. Perhaps I enjoyed the cynical Holden, or that he misses the point, or that I was enveloped in the same cynicism and isolation at that stage in my life, but I connected with him. (I guess you could say the cynic has never left me, given the way I approach my job and corporate life.)

Perhaps how you appreciate CitR is more a measure of how you view life; the more cynical and pessimistic you are, the more you love it.

Of high school/college class reading from that era, I still think that To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite, but CitR is probably close behind.

[lagilman]

err, well. I'm pretty damn cynical, here. But I'm a pragmatist, not a pessimist. The fact that he not only missed the point but seemed to glory in missing the point...at fifteen, I wanted to slap him, hard.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

err, well. I'm pretty damn cynical, here.

Yeah, I kind of noticed. Maybe that's why I like your posts so much. ;-)

But I'm a pragmatist, not a pessimist.

Maybe that's the difference: pessimism vs. pragmatism/others.

[lagilman]

Truthfully, I never understood how anyone could look clearly at humanity and not be cynical. I also never understood people who insisted that cynicism was a bad thing: not so much in the distrust of virtue as the refusal to accept the claims of those professing to such without proof of activity. Cynicism is only reasonable, considering human nature.

(yes, I know this is the modern interpretation, not the classical one.)


However, I do believe that such virtue is possible and indeed maybe natural to us, in ideal conditions, or when nudged publicly. That keeps me from utter pessimism. :-)

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

The Onion has a great obit: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bunch_of_phonies_mourn_j_d