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/lit/ - Literature

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4101434 No.4101434[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

So is this book genius or what?

>> No.4101454

it was influential

>> No.4101461

overrate pile of dogshit

>> No.4101468

To some, sure.

The fact that we have 5 threads about it each day (now over 60 years after it was published) ought to tell you something.

>> No.4101467
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4101467

>>4101461

>> No.4101473

could someone please photoshop a red hunting hat onto a picture of JD Salinger?

>> No.4101476

>>4101473
no

>> No.4101478

>>4101476
that's just your opinion

>> No.4101482

>>4101478
whose else's would it be? I can only speak for myself.

What a remarkably stupid thing to say.

>> No.4101489

extremely quotable, extremely boring.

>> No.4101490

>>4101482
I was just stating a fact...

>> No.4101502

>>4101490
it was self-evident; it needn't have been said.

>> No.4101504 [DELETED] 

>>4101502
I don't know

>> No.4101542

"I told him he thought he could give the time to anybody he felt like. I told him he didn't even care if a girl kept all her kings in the back row or not, and the reason he didn't care was because he was a goddam stupid moron. He hated it when you called him a moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron."

>> No.4102169

>>4101467
why the fuck am I supposed to enjoy this book
there's a fucking depressed teenager, why the fuck am I supposed to care?

>> No.4102186

You're supposed to find Holden humorous at first, and relate to him, then gradually find him more and more irritating until the point comes where you have to consider why you thought he was entertaining/relatable in the first place, and thus view him as an unreliable narrator.

For example, when you look back can you trust Holden when he says the barman was a phony for not serving him, or that he was simply doing his job and Holden was butthurt and had a persecution complex?

Did he really hate swearing, and if so why does his sister, his date, and the girl he dances with complain about his swearing?

If he really wants to be a mute hermit, then why does he spend a large part of the book trying to get people to listen to him "hey listen, X...." etc.

This isn't to say his outlook and observations are totally undermines at the end, since a lot of shit he disagrees with (the guy trying to finger his date while she talks about her friend's suicide) is justified.

It's basically a story of maturity wherein the reader is lured into at first identifying with the narrator/protagonist then gradually outgrows him, and parts ways (and in many cases, such as this thread, rejects any association with the guy)

>> No.4102190

>>4101542
What did you think the significance of the kings were, if any?

I figured that move (keeping the kings etc in the same place) was a defensive tactic in chess, suggesting she's defensive/gentle, and that Stradadtler was thus an asshole for fucking her

>> No.4102198

>>4101434

It is. Salinger is one of the best.

>> No.4102227

>>4102186
I felt bad for him, even at the end.

>> No.4102750

>>4102190
I think it was just showing how Holden really valued, I'm sure you relate with this, the innocent, less sexual qualities of a girl (it killed him, or he was endeared, that Jane kept putting all her kings in the back row for whatever reason) and he was angry at Stradlater for possibly ruining that innocence by having sex with her without caring for what makes her herself.

>> No.4102877

I don't really have a opinion on it. I don't think it's geat nor bad.
I always recommend this book to friends who want to get into reading. It never dissapoints, and they come back begging for more. It was also on of the reasons i intensively started reading.

>> No.4102890

>>4102227
All that proves is that you are a bit mentally unstable/white suburban kid who can relate to him.

Reading it in high school is a terrible idea imo, when I read it the first time I was in a shitty mental place and it just reinforced it all. Not saying it would for everyone, but it basically reaffirmed all the fears I had about my future, life, the fleeting/insubstantial relationships I had with everyone, all that American people problem shit.

It's a dope book though, and anyone who says otherwise is just a wannabe philistine who's pushing as far away from popularity as possible.

If you liked it though, I'd highly recommend you read the rest of JD Sallinger's work. Only three other published novels (including Nine Stories) And a metric fuckton of short stories published over his whole life. Hard to find and surprisingly not collected as far as I've seen but worth the look.

Man, I wish I could read Seymour: An Introduction for the first time again. Brilliant shit, really...

>> No.4103014

Beckett and Faulkner said it was a work of genius masterpiece.

>> No.4103042
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4103042

>shallow, uninteresting book
>small group of academics read too deeply into it
>people agree with them in an effort to seem intellectual
>if anyone disagrees they are uncultured or not intelligent enough to understand the secret messages
>cycle continues

No different than blank canvases being considered genius and selling for millions. Check out this awesome painting guys, I hope you are smart enough to agree with me that it's great and not some uneducated pleb. I have a masters in art history, I could talk to you for 10 hours about this painting if you were as smart as me.

>> No.4103084
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4103084

>>4102169
You're not supposed to enjoy it. Besides, you seem to be living it just fine, yourself.

>> No.4103104
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4103104

>>4103042
>>small group of academics read too deeply into it

There are plenty of legitimate criticisms you can make about the Catcher in the Rye, but that it's too academic is not one of them.

Nice lowbrow jab at modern art, pleb. Salinger's writing's more like a Wyeth or a Hopper, anyway.

>> No.4103132

>>4102890
Would you get off your dark and edgy horse?

Everyone feels the social anxiety and angst that Holden feels, not just "white suburban teenagers", the book has sold hugely everywhere around the world, not just white suburbia.

I swear to God, how simple minded do you have to be to think anyone outside of "white suburbia" doesn't feel anxiety or angst about relationships or authenticity because they have "bigger things to worry about". They can feel both.

And Seymour: An Introduction was his worst work, F&Z was far better.

>> No.4103134

If I wanted to be immersed in the thoughts of a depressed, autistic, fedora-wearing teen I would just visit 4chan, ow8.

But really, most people don't like to be reminded of how stupid they are when they are teenagers. I guess it's good that this book exists, but there's not much reason to read it. It reminds me of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Gimmicky.

>> No.4103176

>>4101434
I greatly enjoyed it, but I feel as though people completely misinterpret Holden's motivations.

I think it's a wonderful portrayal of a youth's fear of becoming an adult. I don't know if it's normal, but I'd assume so, who hasn't wished, if just for minutes at a time, for exactly what Holden wishes for?

>> No.4103190

>>4103042
>can't even make an anti-intellectualist argument properly
>being this clueless

>> No.4103314

>>4102169

Go to bed Holden

>> No.4104553

>>4101434
It's pretty cool and all.

>> No.4105220

It was one of the first books I really read, and possibly one of my favourite reading experiences. I was in tears at the end when Holden and his sister were walking on different sides of the road and the bit with the carousal. Loss of childhood innocence really hits me emotionally for some reason.
I think the book is incredible.

>> No.4105223

Anybody else not like it as a teenager but enjoy it later in life?

I've read it every other year for around a decade now but I hated it when I was 15

>> No.4105531

>>4101434
0/10 phony book

>> No.4105587
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4105587

>>4105531
you're a phony

>> No.4106284

Well, the first thing you're gonna wanna know is what order Les and Bes screwed for me, grabs for ups or downs the line whatever it is. Animal zones. Ducks and fish in the winter, and Ernie's club.

Tinfoil hats all over the subway in the land of the free left on and let off at the freedom towers fries station above casino payouts of cancer responders firsts, shotgun BANG whassup with that thang? Pentagon hang.

Vaudeville was simple then. Sunlight through a highrise could be counted on. Sometimes, I see me dead in the rain Ackley didn't believe any of that shit. Goddamned Ackley.

Camp Hapworth Arcade game 1942

>> No.4106298

>>4105220

Same here. My older brother who ended up killing himself last year lent it to me when I was about 13 and it was THE book that got me into reading. I read it over the course of 2 days when the power was out in a huge part of the midwest.

It was before the internet and social networking were really invasive and people were walking in the streets because it was summer so the days had a festive feeling like July 4th. I would go out with my friends in the evening and it was so dark without the lights that you couldn't see each other unless you sat close. We walked to the bleachers and pissed on the roof of the locker room for the high school football team.

At night I went into the basement where it was cool and I read it by candlelight. I wasn't old enough to decode most of the symbolism so I pretty much just identified with Holden completely and took his word as gospel.

When my family and I went to my brother's room at the group home he had been living, I noticed that the Catcher In The Rye was the book beside his bed as we gathered his things. The bookmark was about halfway in.

I'm 25 now and I haven't read it since I was 13. A part of me is scared to. What it doesn't hit me like it did when I was younger and learning to truly read for the first time?

I've read all of Salinger's other works and they're all great but they still aren't Catcher. Soon some of his posthumous works will be coming out in the next few years. One of the stories is supposed to be about Holden Caufield. I'm looking forward to visiting with an old friend.

>> No.4107033

Salinger went to war and came back feeling like everything people did was shallow and vain, like they were acting, hence the origin of 'phonies.'

Holdon feels this way but is trying to cope by doing things ''phonies' do.

>> No.4107047

>>4105587
where do they go?

>> No.4107060

Not really genius, but important. Used to like it, but then I grew up.

>> No.4107107

>>4103134
>written in 1953
>"gimmicky"

>> No.4107312

>>4106298
Esme, F+Z shit on Catcher.

Have you read 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish'?

>> No.4107599

>>4101434
yes. If you're between 14 and 20. Then it starts losing it's charm, and suddenly all that is good about it is writing, not story or characters.

It's pretty decent though.

>> No.4107614

FEL

>> No.4107652

>>4107107
>gimmicks did not exist before 53