Word broke across the Twitterverse today that JD Salinger, the author arguably more famous for his decades of reticence than for his prose, is dead. Honestly, I haven't read him in quite a while. It will be interesting to see, if I reread him, if his work resonates differently with me after all these years.
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I finished Michael Chabon's "Manhood For Amateurs", and I really enjoyed it. Chabon is a marvelous writer, and the book consists of essays arranged around the general topic of manhood-fatherhood, and his life as a child. There are a couple of frankly sexual sections, but it would make a great Father's Day gift for literate leaning husbands out there.
Salinger is my favorite one-hit-wonder writer.
ReplyDeleteReading Catcher in the Rye was a critical moment in my childhood. Raised on a steady diet of Jane Austin and Louisa May Alcott, I didn't realize real "liteture" could be brash, honest, and, frankly, easy to read. I adored Holden Caufield, simultaneously wanting to save him and be him.
As a high school teacher, I was thrilled I got to teach that book. Sad to say, when I re-read it, Caufield struck me as whiny, spoiled, shallow, and painfully self-centered. As a grown-up, it's a great book to read from a class perspective (he's a rich kid who is quick to judge those who don't share in his wealth or privlege).
Teenagers, especially struggling readers, especially boys, still respond like I once did. So for that, I'm a Salniger fan.
I read "Catcher in the Rye" deep into adulthood. I was notplussed by it. Either because I was deep into adulthood (not in the "market demographic") or because I was never such a rebellious teenager. But I did think it was OK.
ReplyDeleteI haven't found my copy yet, so I picked up "Franny and Zooey" instead. It's obviously dated, but I can still see what I liked in him all along. It will be interesting to try "Catcher" agsin, when I find it. I seem to remember I tried it some time ago, and, like you said, DM, it just doesn't speak to me the way it did when I was 14. Very little does.
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