/lit/ - Literature

>>13982425
Loss of innocence, etc.

>>13982431
so it's araby but whiny, bad, and three hundred pages long?

>>13982445
I wouldn't call it "bad". It's was a pioneering style for the time, and it really puts you inside the mind of an adolescent from the 50s.

I'm a phony now and it's cathartic.

>>13982431
this, but also:
sexual abuse and Holden may have raped Phoebe.

>>13982603
how? it all seemed like a brother playing with his sister. maybe it didn't translate well into 21st century hyper-indiviualistic and overreacting sensibilities

>>13982613
It's a meme, don't worry about it. Only women think Holden raped Phoebe.

>>13982425
Just like Holden sees the darkest parts of himself in the world around him--The adjacent hotel facade full of freaks, the so-called "pervy" teacher's inappropriate advances--So too does the reader see the darkest parts of himself in Holden. This explains the origins of those sharing >>13982603's mentality.

>>13982613
it's ambiguous, and when paired with the entire book being FULL of sexual abuse stories it becomes pretty dark pretty quick. it's not definitive, but it's not "just" a meme.

>>13982633
>only women
t. virgin

have sex please.

>>13982703
trash post

>>13982703
I don't remember anything ambiguous about it froom when I read it, do you have sisters?

>>13982718
no i dont, do you ruminate on your sisters butt before pinching it then get sweaty with her afterwards?

it's ambiguous. could definitely be super innocent and pure and wholesome as fuck. taking into account the theme of sexual abuse throughout the book this could be a glade of innocence for Holden in the book, OR it could be revealing the extent to which he himself was sexually abused, and whether or not he continued that cycle which is very common with molestation cases.

Innocence. Read nine stories

>>13982431
>>13982458
I love when a based anon shuts down a shitpost with an informed, blunt reply

Read Franny and Zooey. I actually think that's his best work.

>>13982767
>never read seymour or a girl i knew

Am I the only one who's genuinely still edgy and resentful despite not being a teenager at all anymore who enjoyed the book for that purpose? I'm just an edgy, dark kind of guy internally.
It seems like everyone here considers the edgy, immature teenage-like style of the writing a flaw. Am I the only one who likes it specifically because it articulates the sort of anger and dislike of the world?
Am I the only adult here who still relates to Holden?

>>13982775
I have read those. I like Franny and Zooey a little better though.

>>13982425
Read the art of fiction. It has a section that takes this book as an example, you'll better understand its merits. There's also a section of Ulysses that I think you'll enjoy.

>>13982791
shouldn't have said that... just outed (you)rself as a pleb

>>13982787
I never stopped thinking people were fundamentally retarded I just learned to include myself as one of them. It's bizarre how hard it is to see the same petty flaws in yourself that are so obvious in other people. This doesn't afford me any sort of comfort or even ability to act better, I just feel sort of detached from myself and generally contemptuous.

>>13982787
I graduated from an Ivy league school and moved to work in a big city. Every day I get up and have to walk to the subway and stand on it for 70 minutes each way, surrounded by homeless beggers and smelly people and usually nasty businessmen. And the Ivy League school treated the students like shit and the professors generally hated to teach and the atmosphere was awful, student suicides were actually pretty common (no it wasn't Cornell).
So I found Catcher in the Rye really relatable.

I like his short story The Laughing Man. Any one ITT who hasn't read it, I'd highly reccomend it. It's pretty short and you might actually enjoy it, who knows.

>>13982805
I can see why what you're saying is probably the more mature position. I'm 25 but still full of myself, I guess. I mean I'm not perfect but I still have that "i fucking hate everybody but myself" attitude from when I was 14.
And this >>13982813
is part of the reason why. I don't think everyone else is a "sheep", but I think they don't apply themselves. And part of my arrogance comes from having made a lot of money on Bitcoin a few years ago and not really needing to work at all, and having a wife and kid by 23. So I never really had any motivation to change. Does that make sense?

>>13982425
Depends on at what age you read it.

I think it is meant to turn teenagers jaded and to alter their internal monologue. Read as an adult you realize the implications of this. What is wisdom to a 15 year old is nowhere near that to an adult. It’s actually a bit unsettling. I remember loving this goddamn book.

>>13982795
sometimes i see me dead in the goddamn rain
ya hear this wiseacre? ain't gonna skip outta this bath into the sun of the upper east side on his account. sheesh. here i am, your jewish-irish tenor combating the sling & awfuls of the designated class police. see those shiny badges? short insult spears? those are for quality controlling assurance. like a quarterbacks ass pat. patrician dominantsexuality of paleothic clubbing. ranger smash until dick vomit. tittery jittery bougainvillea.you're not a wise childnow are ya. get off your yale fur & pennant & walk the streets. listen to everyone ask "who's better than me?"

>>13982868
It is (to describe it figuratively) as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and as if this clerical error became conscious of being such. Perhaps this was no error but in a far higher sense was an essential part of the whole exposition. It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for him, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, “No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer.”

>>13982833
There are degrees of retardation, humans being basically ridiculous doesn't mean some aren't much worse than others. You sound better off than most people, but you're still retarded unfortunately. It doesn't really matter in the end because we care more about how we measure up to others than any attempt at seeing ourselves clearly.

>>13982813
It was Dartmouth wasnt it? Sounds like it

>>13982895
UPenn. I turned down Dartmouth. I don't regret it. But I turned down UC Berkeley too, as a math major. That I kind of regret.

>>13982603
>hurr sister rape bad
There is no better rapist than your brother you retard.
>you know eachother
>it's no big deal because you are family

Oh no! A dick went into a hole! The horror!
Grow up.

>>13982895
>>13982899
Spending 4 years in West Philadelphia surrounded by scum and ultra-liberal hippies who couldn't get into Columbia and came to Penn cause it's the closest thing to New York make a person incredibly jaded and resentful.

>>13982903
wow.

I

>>13982899
>>13982907
so what's the Ivy League ranking bros?

>>13982950
You mean of all the schools, in my personal opinion? Both posts you're replying to are me.
1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Columbia
5. Penn
6. Dartmouth
7. Brown
8. Cornell
Just my personal opinion, again.

>>13982892
Hahahahahaha

>>13982957
Actually switch Brown and Dartmouth.

>>13982961
hahahAHAHAHAHAHAH

>>13982895
You mean Devon, and Dean Stallings.

>>13982703
I recently reread the book and there was nothing even slightly sexual going on it as far as I read. You are all just fucking perverts.

>>13982903
I laughed.

>>13983249
you are an absolute brainlet

>>13983257
What? Because I think two people touching each other doesn't mean ill intent? Your brain is just warped by our modern SJW standards faggot.

>>13983271
if you cant see the theme of sexuality and sexual abuse running through the novel you should just quit.

>>13983387
not that anon but you reachin boy

>>13983634
brainlets, brainlets everywhere.

>>13983667
Hey man, I get it, 10th grade English was tough and your teacher didn't support your Catcher in the Rye theory. Happened to all of us, happened to me. You gotta let it go, though. You're an adult now.

>>13983676
if you didn't read any of the sexual abuse subtext in almost every scene of the book then you aren't reading properly im afraid.

>>13983731
Go through scene by scene and point it out then pussy

>>13983742
Seconding this, please, PLEASE tell me where you are seeing this sexual shit. It just isn't there fuckheads.

>>13983742
>>13983748
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/bspuc4/catcher_in_the_rye_is_it_about_coping_with_the/

>>13983789
>reddit.com/r/books

>>13983794
yes and its not exhaustive, but it lays out what was asked for.

>>13982903
bad anon, shoo, back to /b/, shoo shoo

>>13983826
That was the worst thing i've ever read

>>13983851
https://stereorealist.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/the-secret-rape-of-holden-caulfield/

a non-reddit source.
if people actually want some academic material on this i'd be happy to do the research but like, it's so painfully obviously there that surely it doesn't need to get to that.

Holden hates phoniness. Don't be a big fat phony.

>>13983271
>>13983387
You're both wrong.

Yes, there are motifs of abuse throughout the novel. No, there is no "secret rape" and to allege there is one destroys the very significance of those motifs.

>>13984070
actually the most level-headed response i've read to this. as i've stated before, if it doesn't occur, then holden and phoebe are a super wholesome oasis in the middle of a desert of sexual abuse.

it's just entirely possible to infer that it does occur through a subtextual analysis. it's a reach perhaps, but not "just" a meme.

>>13984132
>>13984070

i think it's also worth mentioning that salinger has a precendence for writing creepy stuff about young girls. holden is not meant to be a pedophile but there is some author appeal going on