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/lit/ - Literature

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1453113 No.1453113 [Reply] [Original]

Holy shit, guys. I just realized why I never read books. I love stories, exploring characters, exploring artists and being placed in a foreign environment... but it never phased me that I hate the shit out of books, always assuming that it was better to just watch a movie or play a rpg.

I would see 'Books & Literature' and immediately think about how terrible of a discussion place it is... and then I'd wonder why it isn't in the media section...

Anyways, it was Catcher in the Rye. It was assigned reading in high school(AP Lit) and it ruined me. I loved every book I had read before that, even if they were flawed, from Ender's Game to Mark Twain. I was pissed about how much I invested into that book and I received absolutely nothing from it... and then the fact that it was considered required reading and a literary classic came to me and I used Cliff's Notes through the rest of the course.

What the hell, guys. I hardly remember anything about the book because it had no plot. The character was a whiny depressed antihero, so obviously he wasn't there for the reader to enjoy. I seem to remember him bitching throughout the entire book and that was it.

Why was it required reading? Why the hell is it considered a classic? I seriously MUST have missed something about that book because there was only one other person in that class who agreed with me that it was terrible. I'm serious, it really is the reason I stopped reading books(but greatly enjoy all other media.)

What's so good about Catcher in the Rye?

>> No.1453127

yeah, i'm thinking forcefully read books are what's killing the yearn to read too.

>> No.1453135

TROOOOOOOOOOOLOLOLOLOLOL

Anyway: you do realize that because something is a widely considered classic does not mean that every individual will enjoy it, right? I loved Catcher in the Rye. You didn't.

Go read some other fucking books and see which ones you like, those that are considered classics and those that remain unknown.

>> No.1453170

I didn't like Catcher. I didn't hate it either, I just felt pretty meh about it. Salinger isn't bad, though. I liked Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters a hell of a lot.

Instead of hating literature, just hate the literate. That's what I (and most of us here) do.

>> No.1453263

Not trooling, I hated too.

What do people love about this book?

>> No.1453337

I really love this book not because I identified with Holden but because I empathized with his misguided reactions to what he saw as an unjust world

>> No.1453368

>>1453263
The book is a story of quiet tragedy. You're not reading it for a plot, there isn't really much, just a record of time in the life of this character when he's completely adrift. He's a kid who looks at the world, and doesn't see any reason to grow up, to participate in the adult world. Ultimately he ends up in an insane asylum. You're not supposed to LIKE Holden, at least not completely, you're supposed to pity him, and for some people to identify with him and in so doing find a reason to realize the world is worth being a part of.

>> No.1453384

Cacther In The Rye was the big trauma in your life? Well, fuck you. Yours truly, sex abuse survivor.

Now, seriously, I really enjoyed CitR the first time around. I was 14 or something, and full of bullshit like Holden. I think you have to be as stupid as him to get truly 'get' and enjoy the book. I tried reading it again a couple of years ago and almost puked all over it.

>> No.1453388

I thought the book was quite good honestly. I never understood why everyone complains. I thought for sure everyone would love it just because you get to read a book with tons of foul language for school (not making fun of you but that's the only thing that satisfies a lot of high school students).
Anyways I loved it just because you're watching a breakdown in progress. I didn't care for the message Salinger had in there just liked that it was a tragic story about looking for something you can't find. Kind of like On the Road or even Fight Club

>> No.1453398

>>1453368
I'm one of the people who enjoyed Catcher in the Rye, but I think the reason why a lot of people hate it is simply because they can't relate. Unfortunately, being of having been one day as stupid and depressed as Holden is necessary to truly like the book.

I don't know what that says about its quality. In one hand, it doesn't touch everybody. In the other, to the ones it touches it's like a freaking revelation or something, like that scene from Velvet Goldmine when Batman is pointing at the TV and saying "THAT'S ME, THAT'S ME!", and his parents can't understand him because that's not who they are or who they ever were.

>> No.1453407

>>1453384
I hate it when people say they were "sexually abused" its just so vague, it extends from seeing a flasher in the park to having a weird older cousin dare you into giving them a handjob to being raped repeatedly with sharp objects while a masked man makes death threats and ritualistically carves your flesh.

I'm not asking you for details, I don't really care. I just don't like people defining themselves by overly broad categories and trying to elicit sympathy from it. "I'm a cancer survivor" means nothing, there are cancers that you can survive with rough the same probability as the flu.

>> No.1453428

>>1453407
I wasn't sexually abused, that was a fucking joke.

Actually, I was sexually abused, but it was still a joke. Retarded.

I'll give you details anyway. A fat nigger touched me in my private parts and made me give him a blowjob. I wouldn't have minded so much, except he was really fat and ugly.

>> No.1453449

>>1453428
Don't worry I just like taking the offensive on people who claim to be sexually abused, they're too used to pity for their own good.

>> No.1453451

>>1453407
Not that previous anon, but fuck you. It doesn't matter HOW the person was abused, but how he or she perceived the abuse. What you just said is really fucking disrespectful. Being coarced to give a handjob to your creepy cousin might not be as bad as being raped with a stalactite, but it's not painless or undeserving of being called sexual abuse.

Fuck you hard.

>> No.1453465

>>1453449
You shouldn't, though. Have YOU ever been sexually abused? Either way, you have no fucking right to take offensive on anyone who has. No sexual abuse, however 'minor', is ever a walk in the park. It's always humiliating and damaging.

You sound like a fucking douchebag to me. And yes, I'm mad as hell.

>> No.1453466

>>1453451
I didn't say it wasn't, it was in the middle ground dumbass, the middle ground is what the category is defined around.
Anyway it doesn't matter how they perceived the abuse its how I perceive they perceived or should have perceived the abuse related against how much pity they desire, its a pretty simple equation.

>> No.1453478

Getting back to the book, I heard that there are places in the text that indicate Holden's an unreliable narrator...

Anybody know/remember where those were?

Not a homework question.

>> No.1453487

>>1453478
Well he's in an insane asylum, also it sounds like you're asking a homework question?

>> No.1453490

>>1453466
There is no middle ground in this particular situation, you're fucking wrong as shit. Being sexually abused is being sexually abused, it's as simple as that. What that abuse entails is another matter entirely. You're being completely disrespectful of every victim of sexual abuse ever, particularly those who were not taken seriously because of people like you.

Sex abuse survivors don't always seek your pity, but they're naturally inclined to talk about it once it's out in the open. It's natural to want to keep it for yourself for a long time, and then you break and needs to tell people. It doesn't mean you want their pity, just their acknowledgment, and people like you can't even give them that.

You're a fucking douchebag who I'll bet doesn't know the first thing about emotional torture and humiliation. If you've never felt so helpless you're basically reduced to a fucking toy, then you don't have the right to even try to argue.

And no, I do not want your pity. I don't want anything from you, although I'll admit some acknowledgment would be nice. Asshole.

>> No.1453492

>>1453478
I don't think there is any coherent evidence that Holden is in an asylum.

The most glaring bit of proof is in the beginning when he says, "...I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy." This could mean anything--even that he's just staying at his brother's house.

>> No.1453511

>>1453492
You interpret as you like, me and much of the general consensus will go with an asylum. But its not outright stated, and it doesn't actually have a right answer, its fiction. I think the implication is pretty clear, but honestly to each his own.

>> No.1453516

>>1453490
of course there's middle ground, all human behavior and activity is is a continuum. What kind of retard are you, did all that sex abuse give you like borderline personality disorder or something that you can only process information in terms of absolutes?

> particularly those who were not taken seriously because of people like you.
but I'm not taking them seriously either, so that's not much of a statement is it?

People just have this problem where they feel the need to wrap the whole of their identity up with the bad things that happen to them. Its just absurd and unhealthy.

>> No.1453530

>>1453511
I don't even think it's implied.

What is implied is that NYC became too much for him and he's moved elsewhere for a bit. He could have even gotten a cabin in the woods, like he wanted. That's the important thing.

Stating he's in an asylum is a bit disingenuous because: 1) you don't know for sure 2) you're professing it as fact.

In short, eat some turd.

>> No.1453535

>>1453516
I don't process information in terms of absolutes, hence why I used the word 'particular'. So it's much like saying you're a douche. It's a simple, solid fact.

And my point was EXACTLY that you weren't taking them seriously, can't you fucking read? And "people" don't have the need to wrap the whole of their identity up with the bad things that happened to them, only some people do. Of course, it would be LOGICAL to know some people who were sexually abused are severely damaged, and addicted to misery, which explains a lot of what you're saying. Just because you had bad experience with sex abuse survivors doesn't mean you can trow things like that and not expect people who were abused to get pissed.

I'm much more than what happened to me, but you ought to remember that I felt helpless as fuck when it happened, so naturally this will affect how I see myself my entire life. It's what a an actual trauma does to you. It doesn't mean that my identifier, because it fucking as hell isn't.

I like how you both generalize and lack any sort of empathy in order to just understand such as basic concept as trauma.

>> No.1453542

I love the book just because I identified with it, OP. I was depressed when reading it the first time, and it clicked well with me. I had a used copy too, and it was written in throughout. For some reason that inspired me to write in it too, and I got even more into the book that way.

But I totally understand if you or anybody else hates it. And I agree with you on the assigned reading shit. I seriously felt like killing someone anytime I was assigned most anything from the Romantic or Victorian Era.

>> No.1453544

I must go to sleep now, but the anon who thinks people who were sexually abused should just man up is a fucking asshole who probably never had anything too bad happen to him or haven't yet accepted the extent of its damage.

I hope he gets raped.

Good night.

>> No.1453545

>>1453530
How am I professing it as a fact, its a work of fiction, it contains precisely zero facts, absolutely nothing about Holden's life is a fact.

>> No.1453553

>>1453544
sex abuse victim, wishing sex abuse on others, that just seems hypocritical.

>> No.1453554

My only beef was was that it was taught with critical approaches in my school. Meaning all the girls tried to see feminism and "queer theory" in Holden and tried to make him into a faggot. God dammit not everyone has to be secretly gay.

>> No.1453556

>>1453113
Look I'm only willing to say this because im a gay anon yada yada but if you quit reading literature entirely because you didn't like CitR I seriously doubt you fully understood any of the classics you read and would be wasting your time doing something other than playing games or watching films for your escapist enrichment.

>> No.1453563

>>1453554

Fucking a' dude. I agree completely. I had to go through this shit twice when reading The Old Man and The Sea. It wasn't until I didn't have theories of what existentialism is all about being shoved down my throat that I starting loving the book.

>> No.1453572

It's a terribly boring book if you're not in the right mood. Great for most teenagers at some point. Has its merits, etc.

>>1453553
Not to interfere where I'm not invited, but wasn't he simply countering an argument? What you say has consequences, you know.

>>1453554
What's up with all the gay interpretations? I never got it either. I remember watching an episode of Queer as Folk, as I did sometimes late at night when everything else was worse, where they make fun of this. A teenager is required to read it for class, and mentions Holden is probably gay because "catcher means passive". It's funny in context.

>> No.1453598

>>1453492
Well for starters he talks about it being "madman stuff" early on. He says he talks to a doctor a lot. His brother drives us to see him. And the way he talks about might go home in a couple weeks or something, just reads that way to me.

>> No.1453601

The Bell Jar was better.