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

[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. :-)