{"id":1805,"date":"2004-10-20T14:06:42","date_gmt":"2004-10-20T18:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2015-05-16T20:23:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T00:23:29","slug":"i-know-plenty-of-people-hate-jd-salinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1805","title":{"rendered":"Re-reading <i>Catcher In the Rye<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0316769487&#038;asins=0316769487&#038;linkId=EOWCBE56JNR2IMKL&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nDuring <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1192\">my Bloomsday extravaganza <\/a>this past year &#8211; which a ton of people seemed to really enjoy, actually &#8211; I got a couple of comments in emails, and also a couple of <i>cowards <\/i>posted stuff about me on OTHER people&#8217;s blogs (but didn&#8217;t have the balls to come to me themselves.  The comments were full of the misguided feeling that somehow I was trying to say I felt I was BETTER than other people because I loved James Joyce.  There were comments like: &#8220;Maybe I&#8217;m ignorant, but I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything wrong with loving Robert Ludlum.&#8221;  Can you say &#8220;projection&#8221;?  I know you can!<\/p>\n<p>I never said, &#8220;To all you <i>idiots <\/i>who love Robert Ludlum, let me show you what REAL literature is like.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I would never ever do that.  And if you think I would, you don&#8217;t know me at all.  It&#8217;s your problem, all yours.  It&#8217;s that whole populist chip-on-shoulder thing that is so tiresome.  I know it&#8217;s best to ignore it, and I will from now on.  <\/p>\n<p>So, as a JD Salinger lover, I was interested and annoyed in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A43680-2004Oct18.html\">Jonathan Yardley&#8217;s column about re-reading <i>Catcher in the Rye<\/i>.<\/a>  It&#8217;s a part of that awesome Washington Post series, re-reading old classics, taking a new look at them.  I read all of Yardley&#8217;s columns, I love them, and will continue to do so even though I disagree with him wholeheartedly on this one.<\/p>\n<p>I recently re-read <i>Catcher<\/i>, and found myself, one night, laughing out loud like a hyena on a silent bus &#8211; I was snorting, cackling, etc.  I love it!  It&#8217;s the PROSE I love.   I can&#8217;t explain it further than that &#8211; it makes me laugh.  Yardley finds the prose manipulative (which, for me, is a rather meaningless word &#8230; what does he mean by it?)  That Salinger wants to make us feel things?  Well, what author DOESN&#8217;T want that?<\/p>\n<p>Yardley writes that the book &#8220;touches adolescents&#8217; emotional buttons without putting their minds to work.&#8221;  I totally disagree with that.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Crothers (my great 10th grade teacher) taught the book &#8211; and yes, indeed, the book &#8220;touched emotional buttons&#8221; &#8211; but there was quite a BIT to think about as well.  I remember almost word for word Crothers&#8217; discussion on the whole &#8220;where do the ducks go when the ponds freeze&#8221; conversation that Holden has with the cabbie and various others &#8230; This was not about emotional manipulation, this was a book like any other, a book of puzzle pieces &#8211; and for ONCE it was fun to try to put them together.  (Unlike putting together the boring symbolic puzzle pieces of <i>Billy Budd<\/i> &#8211; now THAT book is manipulative!!)<\/p>\n<p>Additionally:  I have to say to Yardley:  Er &#8211; why do you have contempt for something that wants to &#8220;push adolescents emotional buttons&#8221;?  It&#8217;s that kind of hostility towards outright sentiment, or emotion, that I don&#8217;t like.  It&#8217;s the kind of attitude that thinks <i>Notting Hill<\/i> is a shitty movie because it wants to make you feel something.  There might be a better example than <i>Notting Hill<\/i>, but whatever.  I don&#8217;t have a problem with sentiment, with open emotion, or with the simple beautiful love expressed in the book between Holden and Phoebe.  I LOVE it, as a matter of fact.  I don&#8217;t think Holden is a &#8220;saint&#8221; with Phoebe.  I think he&#8217;s all messed up with Phoebe.  It&#8217;s a perfect description of the kind of codependent worried vibe that goes on between siblings.  I LOVE Phoebe.<\/p>\n<p>Back to &#8220;manipulation&#8221;:  I find books like <i>Bridges of Madison County<\/i> to be manipulative.  I found <i>The Notebook<\/i> by Nicholas Sparks to be so manipulative that I couldn&#8217;t even finish it, and left it in a drawer in my youth-hostel room in Galway.  Now THAT book was going for the emotional jugular without touching your brain ONCE.   In that mawkish book I can look right through the prose and see the puppet-strings.  And I can tell that the author is aiming right for the lowest common denominator.<\/p>\n<p>Yardley is obviously entitled to his opinion, but this is just my counter-opinion, I suppose. I don&#8217;t find <i>Catcher<\/i> manipulative in THAT way at all.  The book certainly makes me feel things &#8211; and I&#8217;ve read it multiple times.  As an adolescent, I read it, and fell in love with Holden.  As a young woman I read it, and perceived other depths in it &#8211; the love of siblings, the need to have a meaningful life, the unresolved issues of Allie&#8217;s death.  And recently, I just read the damn thing and found a great story.  Funny, sad, chaotic, mysterious &#8211; I don&#8217;t know.  To me, it&#8217;s a great story.  Even though nothing really happens.  It&#8217;s like a Cassavetes film &#8211; an exploration of a state of mind, a minute description of 48 hours.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think a book that wants to make you feel something and ACHIEVES IT is anything to be ashamed of.<\/p>\n<p>A book that desperately wants to make me feel something and FAILS to achieve it, on the other hand, is a blight upon this earth.  I can&#8217;t stand books like that.  Or movies, for that matter.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;ve got no problem with emotion, honestly asked-for and honestly-earned.  I love books that make me love them.  There aren&#8217;t many.  <i>Catcher in the Rye<\/i> is one of those books for me.  I can&#8217;t say why, because it seems to be a different book every time I read it.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it is the fact that there is some mystery at the center of the book &#8211; something UNdescribed, UNexpressed &#8211; that makes it such a classic.  Actually, &#8220;classic&#8221; is the wrong word.  The better word is &#8220;beloved&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>To me, that book is a beloved book.  I grew, when I read it for the first time.  Soul-growth, whatever you want to call it.  Yardley may look down his nose on the soul-growth of a 14 year old, but I think it&#8217;s the most important kind of growth.  I will always be glad I read the book when I did.  It made a huge impact &#8230; and now, when I pick it up again, I&#8217;m not looking for insight, or for the answer to the meaning of life &#8230; Usually, when I pick it up now, I&#8217;m just looking for a good laugh.<\/p>\n<p>In that respect, Salinger always delivers.<\/p>\n<p>And lastly:  Yardley puts down some of the aspects of the book that would only appeal to teenagers (all grown-ups are phonies, etc.)  I think THAT, actually, is a snobby attitude.  &#8220;It can&#8217;t be a classic if teenagers love the book in droves.&#8221;  Personally, I think that <i>The Pigman<\/i>, by Paul Zindel, is one of the best books I have ever read.  Hands down.  It was assigned to my 8th grade English class &#8230; and it&#8217;s about two teenage misfits who find each other &#8230; and it&#8217;s full of humor, and pain, and rebellion &#8230; and it continues to be a favorite of mine to this day.  I tip my cap to Paul Zindel.  I tip my cap to Salinger.  I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything &#8220;lesser&#8221; about their books, just because teenagers &#8220;get&#8221; them.<\/p>\n<p><i>Update<\/i>: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.erinoconnor.org\/archives\/001030.html\">Erin at Critical Mass weighs in<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0316769487&#038;asins=0316769487&#038;linkId=EOWCBE56JNR2IMKL&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During my Bloomsday extravaganza this past year &#8211; which a ton of people seemed to really enjoy, actually &#8211; I got a couple of comments in emails, and also a couple of cowards posted stuff about me on OTHER people&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1805\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[85,888],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101938,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions\/101938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}