Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger
CORNISH, NH—In this big dramatic production that didn't do anyone any good (and was pretty embarrassing, really, if you think about it), thousands upon thousands of phonies across the country mourned the death of author J.D. Salinger, who was 91 years old for crying out loud. "He had a real impact on the literary world and on millions of readers," said hot-shot English professor David Clarke, who is just like the rest of them, and even works at one of those crumby schools that rich people send their kids to so they don't have to look at them for four years. "There will never be another voice like his." Which is exactly the lousy kind of goddamn thing that people say, because really it could mean lots of things, or nothing at all even, and it's just a perfect example of why you should never tell anybody anything.
I never liked anything Salinger wrote. *shrug*. It might be worth re-reading as an adult (i initially read as a teen, on my own, never had classroom discussion or such) but i kinda doubt i'll ever get around to it. Especially when there are so many other books to read that DO appeal to me.
I had a major breakthrough a couple years ago that i don't HAVE to finish every book i start. I checked out Camus' _the Plague_ from the library because i vaguelly recalled _The Stranger_ being interesting and i find pretty much everything about the black plague to be fascinating. I didn't even get halfway through the book before i realised that i did not want to finish it, and would not improve my life in any significant way by slugging through the rest of the slight tome. It was the first time i ever even considered NOT finishing a book. Very liberating. In much the same bent, even though i have started the second part of the vampire diaries, i shall not finish it when the new books come out. Just not. And i rather enjoyed the first four books with the sort of guilty pleasure that had me seek out the twilight series.
Two Lumps take on The Catcher in the Rye: [link]
Catcher did nothing for me. But I read it late. I have a feeling you have to be in a certain pretty narrow window to really connect with it.
I think you can insert "Anything written by Ayn Rand" for Catcher here.
I enjoyed Catcher when I read it in high school, in spite of Holden as being the Whiniest Person. Lots of my students love it.
oddly, I have read most of Sallinger many times, and i never remember anything about the books. Nothing .
Catcher didn't make much of an impression on me when I read it. At 17 I was affected far more deeply by Knowles, Porter, Golding, and Shakespeare.
Well, and Melville too I guess, because I still recall how incredibly boring all my friends and I found Billy Budd, and my response to reading anything else he wrote has been a resounding "I would prefer not to" ever since.
Well, and Melville too I guess, because I still recall how incredibly boring all my friends and I found Billy Budd, and my response to reading anything else he wrote has been a resounding "I would prefer not to" ever since.
Amen, my brothah. I do not like him, Sam I am. I do not like Melville man.
Melville does have his moments. For example, there's this chapter in Moby Dick: [link]
An excerpt:
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, - Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.
I found Billy Budd both annoying and depressing and it might take someone holding a gun to my head for me to read it again. The rest of Melville is wondrous, though, and I hate the idea that Billy Budd is keeping people from Moby Dick and The Confidence Man, not to mention the accounts of Polynesia in Typee and Oomoo.
