/lit/ - Literature

possibly to quell the self-doubt created by the awareness the book brings of their own actions?

thoughts?

>Because Franny and Zooey was better

I just hate the way Salinger writes
it's too "show-offey" I know this is a main complaint with Salinger but I just don't like his writing style

granted the guy can weave a great yarn but that only goes so far

It's not bad, but it's entry-level.

Catcher in the Rye is the Pink Floyd of lit.

Caulfield is redundant. He's a phony nowadays.

>>1508150
>salinger's prose
>show-offey
wut?

>>1508150
That being said I'm still going to get Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour

>MFW P3OPL3 D1DNT L1K3 YOUR F4VOR1T3 BOOK

>>1508151
i dont think it's 'objectively' good but it i love it emotionally so much. it makes me cry.

>>1508153
how do you mean?

>>1508159
some people do, deal with it.

I wish someone would go into his old house and get all that shit he wrote when he was being all a recluse or whatever, and just publish it already

>>1508167
hadnt he already begun to wane from his peak though?

>>1508151
I don't understand this analogy at all. Are you saying that people read that book too appear "refined" and "classy"? Because I've observed that with people who say they listen to Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd is an excellent band IMO, and Catcher in the Rye an alright novel, "Entry level" or not.

>>1508157
yeah I mean granted he has talent but it just comes across as trying to show off to me I don't know why

it doesn't stop me from reading his works or anything its just a thought in the back of my head whenever I read his works

>>1508171
I don't care as long as I get more Glass family stories.

>>1508151
Are you saying my love for Salinger is like a dad rock phase? I don't want a dad rock phase, oh god.

I don't like it, and that's just because I view it as a tool to evoke a reaction, and not much more, and i don't see why it should be respected for being one. I look at it like a picture of puppies, simple, and effective at achieving an emotional reaction, but doesn't mean it's a good picture. I remember in high school a girl in my class freaking out about how much she related to it, and all I could think was 'yea... that's the point.'

I have no idea. Because smarter people have a problem with it I suppose.

Highschoolfag here. The other day this boy who hates me (even though I've never spoken to him before, other than 'good morning') was just (for no reason) saying 'hurp durp I am a hipster that's why I love Catcher in the Rye' (he actually said hurp durp).

And I will admit, I DO like Catcher in the Rye. So I asked him, 'why do you think only hipsters like that book, it IS good'. And he says "Because they all relate to Holden". So I go on, "Well, then maybe they just don't understand it. Holden is supposed to be a bit immature, he's a kid." He says whatever then a few seconds later says to his friend "Yeah, of course it has a deeper meaning only she can understand. Cause she's a hipster.".

There's nothing wrong with Catcher in the Rye to me. But I can get why someone else wouldn't like it. I just don't like when something becomes accepted as bad on /lit/ and everyone just agrees to avoid looking stupid.

>>1508173
I agree with this anon!

It's a good book that had it's reputation tarnished because too many hipsters bandwagoned it. That's really all there is to say outside of discussing the book itself.

Because this generation is conservative. The parents of today's teenagers and young adults were more okay with that much freedom. Today, it's hip to be square.

So the first thing that they will judge is if the writing is elegant and intricate, avoiding anything that looks spontaneous. Another reason could be that reading Catcher in the Rye gives the feeling that they could write like that as well. And so they are all butthurt because Catcher is a classic and the stories they wrote as teenagers will never get published (they can't tell the difference). It's similar to why some people hate on Picasso "pfff I can draw like that!" and jerk off to fantasy fanart on dA.

IMHO, Catcher in the Rye is in fact a good book. It's not the most amazing shit there is, but it's good enough to leave its mark. It was a favourite of mine when I read the first time (at 14) and then I forgot about it and read it again at 25 and realized it was better than I remembered. People should give it a try and stop with the nonsense.

>>1508213
Fucking five star post.

>>1508187
Funny you mentioned a girl. Most of the people I know that liked the book were guys and the girls I met didn't like it as much. I thought it was too "masculine", with a male set of thoughts.

>>1508222
Well women are far more capable of relating to male characters than men are to female characters.

I didn't like the book because I thought the main character was annoying as shit.

>>1508213
troof, this generation is i feel like going to be conservative in a real weird way

like, i don't mean conservative in a political sense b/c if anything i feel like we're rather liberal - certainly we're mostly all social liberals by now - but just conservative in mindset and attitude i guess. Not wild and crazy.

>Today, it's hip to be square.
Highschoolfag here. So sad, but true.

In every single math class I've ever had, all I heard was 'I am going to be awesome at math and make money and be successful'. Not to mention all of the phony 'intellectual' quotes posted on Facebook.

My generation is obsessed with being smart, being the cool underdog who always wins the day, about being rich and successful. This may be a by-product of the Generation X-ers. I do not know.

All I know is there is an obsession amongst my generation about being smart and making money for the sake of bragging rights, power, and materialistic wants. Like all of the integrity of ambition was sucked out with a vacuum cleaner. I don't think this was an issue with other generations. Where aspiring to be cool seemed more normal than aspiring to be an 'intellectual' without working for it (or playing into society's lame idea of what intellectualism looks like, see Big Bang Theory).

>>1508266
I'm going to admit to being part of your horrible class of people as well and say that where I come from there's no interest in being successful ... hell, I can't even tell what they want.

Maybe they're too young. Maybe I'm too young.

I read catcher in the rye a long time ago to prove a middle school teacher that I could comprehend it. I didn't hate it but I saw a man whining for a long time. Makes more sense now but I'm not going to concede that his rants are righteous.

>>1508266
I think it has less to do with gen-x, and more to do with the historical events which took place when we were born or when we were growing up. We were born into a world with no Soviet Union - we've never know that kind of existential fear - rather we were born into a world with capitalism triumphant, where the cardinal virtues are expanding and spreading capitalism and making money. We also had the experience, deeply affecting many of us I think, of 9/11 at quite a young age - I think that sudden fear, the sudden state the United States went through where suddenly no one was sure of anything, had a profound impact on us, made us seek security, instead of being concerned with abstract things or havin' a good time we want to make sure everything is fine and we're safe and not in danger of losing it all. This has been exacerbated by the recession and shit, ofc. Finally, I think there's something important in the fact that we are a - I don't know if the first, but a - generation born after the death of the avant, after the academy had been mortified and turned into something insane and completely separated from everyday life, and so I think it's difficult for our generation to aspire to intellectual things because there's such a prevalent image in our culture of "stupid ivory tower people who say insane things that don't relate to culture at all."

I don't know, this is just some bullshit I guess.

I don't think it's cool to dislike Catcher, I just do

I expect people (who consider themselves authorities on the topic of literature) to consider me shallow & less intelligent for my opinion, but I am unwilling to hedge my opinion based on what other people say

>>1508213
>>1508254
>>1508266
Today's youth is very much the opposite of what you are describing. You are all mad. We're coming into an age when drug use and underage sex is at an all-time high. I see it as something that will only continue to get worse. People like having a good time, and that is definitely not changing.

>>1508283
i was going to say 'kill this poster' to >>1508266
but couldnt be bothered.

i think it just varies in cities and countries bros.

lets get back to how beautiful catcher is and how in denial the phonies are.

>>1508283
I mean, any kind of generalization is obviously going to nothing more than any attempt to identify rough trends, tendencies that distinguish our generation from others - but of course in any generation there's going to be tremendous amounts of people who don't fit the 'rule', there's always going to be kids getting high and fucking and being fuckups, all that shit.

I think, though, that a lot of that comes down to the social liberalism that I was talking about - we're very much okay with whatever kind of behavior you choose to do, especially if it squares with social mores - but I think that's linked to a conservative tendency in mindset and in attitude and in worldview (though certainly not in social mores). Does that make any kind of sense?

>>1508283
I think we're talking about the concepts and ideas in the culture. That desire for the materialistic aspects being wealthy involves drugs and sex. You're thinking about this much too simply.
>>1508290
Why kill me?
>>1508293
THIS.

>>1508213 here

>>1508283
>People like having a good time, and that is definitely not changing.
Certainly true. But having a good time and having fun was not exactly my point to be honest, and with that I disagree with the posters that agreed with me. It's just that they have a resistance against negative thinking, revolutionary ideas, anything that is "dirty" morally speaking. I bet that some people were annoyed solely by the fact that Holden smokes. Why? "Because smoking is a slow and ugly form of suicide".

If you take a look at blockbuster movie making today and compare to yesterday's you will see the difference in mentality preety well. I don't want to get to the subject of why this is happening.

catcher in the rye is a great book.

If you have 17 and get the message.

And, of course, if yoy didn't read a clockwork orange at 15.

>>1508327
>resistance against negative thinking, revolutionary ideas, anything that is "dirty" morally speaking.
Nailed it. Everyone wants to be that happy, quirky indie pixie.

>>1508330
>he thinks holden was as much a phoney as everyone else!

I just couldn't identify with Holden.

>>1508335
holden was as much of a phony as everyone else tho

everyone in the brutal alienating capitalist system is a phony, only after the glorious revolution of the proletarian working men can one not be phony. then we will all party all night long with burly farm hands and factory workers.

oh yeah you idiots think Hamlet's 'demise' was due to in-action too, carry-on.

>>1508341
>holden was as much of a phony as everyone else tho
No.

>then we will all party all night long with burly farm hands and factory workers.
and kill each other in senseless drunkenness, enjoy your fantasy.

>>1508151
>Comparing a shitty book to a good band.

I hate Catcher in the Rye just because of the mystery that surrounds it. The readers is given too much freedom to make shit up about the book. It makes me think of a High School English class.

>>1508346
You really think Holden was an 'authentic' person? Man, no wonder you so fucked up.

>>1508357
i didnt say he was. i said he was less phoney than others in the book even considering the possibility of unreliable narration.

>in this white man world were the ones thats chosen
>so goodnight cruel world ill see you in the morning
>ill see you in the morning
- kanye west

What is with that gay ass picture?

It makes Holden look like a nelly bottom leaving the gay bar.

>>1508453
quit saying that you fucking homophobe.

What was the point to Catcher in the Rye? I had to read it in high school, so I got almost no explanation for any of it, and hated it out of spite.

As I recall, it's about an whiny guy who can't enjoy himself and has a nervous breakdown. It was sometimes engrossing, but mostly repellent. I figured it was one of those books that had a more obvious meaning in its own time period, but didn't make the same kind of sense later.

>>1508453
It's called fanart.

>>1508458
Not everyone you identify with is gay, even if your delusional fantasy world hold such notions.

>>1508453
I agree

It makes Holden look like a nelly bottom leaving the gay bar

>>1508462
LOL. thats no excuse for your homophobia

>>1508464
also you too fggt

>>1508470
I'm not homophobic. Excrement is a fact of life and I'm totally cool with it, but I'm not okay with someone rubbing my face into a pile of it, if you get my analogy.

>>1508483
>compares gay people to shit
>not a homophobe
my fuckin' face.

ITT: you realize this book is for teachers to single out who has matured emotionally and not

the kids in HS who relate to holden strongly are still immature and can't empathize or scrutinize their own actions from a 3rd person perspective

the kids who could relate to holden but also see how he is selfish, aimless, neglectful and hypocritical are the more mature one. holden doesn't do anything to take care of his own body throughout the 3 days in which the novel take place. he drinks alcohol and maybe has a little bread, that's all i remember. most of the time he's just drifting from one place to another, shooting his mouth off at anyone who will listen.

the teacher is a real-life version of holden's "catcher in the rye". if it weren't for the teacher, holden would have no one to talk to, no one's home to sleep in and he probably would have died.

>>1508544
nice HS level analysis bro.

Is catcher in the rye on the american high school curriculum? There is no other possible explanation for its popularity beyond people being forced to read and 'engage' with it.

To all you wise and enlightened highschool fags like:
>>1508266

Protip:
That's what every fucking generation has been like. If you were to give the generations of the past current technology and standards they would have turned out the same.

Go bawww some more from your intellectual castle... spend your amazing intellects bawwing about them some more.

Catcher is too deep for 95% of the general public. Those quickest to dismiss it as entry level know nothing of true literary quality and are cursory readers. They will never understand it, or themselves, and will wake up at 80 realizing they wasted their lives chasing an ideal that doesn't exist.

>>1509633
are you 15 years old?

Read the first page whilst on the toilet. Got bored. Started reading Gary Larson cartoons instead.

Shut The Fuck Up, Mark!
You Cunt

>>1509642
y u mad tho

>>1509623
yeah part of the sticky should have been the quote from that roman senator bitching about the 'youth of today'. people say that shit too much on this board.

>>1509626
my version is better but im not at my comp to post it.

>>1509656
>my version is better but im not at my comp to post it.
pics or stfu.

My novel has just become an international best-seller and clint eastwood is thinking of adapting it for the silver screen.

>>1509666
just because you got dubs, satan

>>1509673
>>1509673

>666
>dubs

>>1509692

>66
>not dubs

>>1509698
>>1509698

>doesn't know what dubs, trips, quads and quints are.
>there's a reason moot said 'i got quints' on the sticky and not 'i got dubs'

>>1509692
yeah whatever im tired.

also since my trip hasnt been cracked yet this post will mark my new trip in case it ever does get cracked.

>>1509703
Because quints>>>dubs.
Quints are quads are trips are dubs, but not vice versa. You might as well say "There's a reason the call gold jewelery gold and not metal."

>>1509703

>implying dubs aren't an integral part of trips / quads / quints

>>1509709
>>1509711
TOLD

J.D. Salinger

1919 - 2010

may he rest in peace

>>1509709
>>1509709

yes but you typically refer to something as the sum of it's parts. that's why we call them 'dubs' and not 'singles'
>>1509711
>>1509711
Integral part yes, but you say a car has an engine, you do not name every specific part

>>1509740
Well, aside from that we highlight the unusual aspects of something more than the usual aspect (like singles), you were saying that trips are not dubs. Now you say they are.

Now I am happy.