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/lit/ - Literature

File: 70 KB, 223x351, Rye_catcher.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Thu Jan 1 23:49:54 2015 No.5938844 [Reply] [Original]

There's no Salinger thread on his birthday.
Let's discuss the man and his work. Obviously most notably pic related.
>how old were you when you read it?
>how did you feel then?
>how do you feel now?
>phonies general

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 00:22:36 2015 No.5938968

I read Catcher around 15, liked it. Didn't say "omfg, I'M HOLDEN" or think the character was whiny. He was a humorously written outcast who had trouble with social interactions, I don't see how people miss this.

My favorite of the Nine Stories is "Just Before the War with the Eskimos", everyone should read that one.

Also, somebody please post that image of Beckett and Faulkner quotes praising Catcher while Bloom's quote just says "period piece."

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 00:33:03 2015 No.5939015 15-16 somewhere around there I was holden I am holden He, she, we phony

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 00:33:48 2015 No.5939021 >>5939015 Same as this guy

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 00:39:16 2015 No.5939040 File: 1.99 MB, 350x300, 1419771322482.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] cheese

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 03:31:23 2015 No.5939608 I was 13. I wasn't well read, so I didn't understand its themes. Now, I just think I can sometimes relate to Holden's problems of being lonely and growing up. I enjoy Nine Stories better than this book, especially De-Daumier Smith's Blue Period.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 03:35:04 2015 No.5939615 Franny And Zooey is much better.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:00:58 2015 No.5939650 I was fourteen. I saw Holden Caulfield as a whiny fag.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:01:56 2015 No.5939651 >>5939650 stop memeposting and tell us how you really feel for once

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:08:18 2015 No.5939662

Op, might as well post my answers and relation to the book.
I read it in 7th grade so was about 13, I felt very isolated for a 13 year old. Catcher served as something of a badge to set me apart and make me feel special, like a... Red hunting cap.
Now I appreciate catcher for what it did to me but no longer see myself as something special for my appreciation of it. I don't think Holden was molested
My favorite part of the book is Holden in the ballroom.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:38:05 2015 No.5939705 I am 25. Any point in reading it?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:38:50 2015 No.5939706 >>5939705 yes

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:39:44 2015 No.5939707 >>5939705 I would say so. You will definitely be reading it different than you would were you to have read it a decade ago. You should really read it, Salinger is a great writer and Catcher has a a warranted fame.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:44:50 2015 No.5939712 >>5939706 >>5939707 On to the reading list it goes. Thanks

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:45:10 2015 No.5939714 File: 37 KB, 447x720, 1420187354983.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Read it at 20 Hated it then Hate it now, I'm 21 Can't believe anybody cares about this book, seriously

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:46:49 2015 No.5939716 >>5939714 Why did you hate it then why hate it now? It ruined Salinger's life too buddy

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:47:08 2015 No.5939717 >>5939714 well it's bc you're still an adolescent

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:49:57 2015 No.5939720 >>5939712 Phony detected

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:50:50 2015 No.5939722
File: 7 KB, 160x240, xiyfzlye.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>how old were you when you read it?
13 I think
>how did you feel then?
I sort of related to Holden, understanding the struggle that he had when he couldn't decide is he ready to be an adult yet. ;__;
>how do you feel now?
It's okay, haven't read for a while.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:51:16 2015 No.5939723 >>5939720 >>5939712 Sorry, wrong person, I like you. I hope you have a kid because you seem like you'd be a good parent. I meant to respond to >>5939714

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:51:54 2015 No.5939726

>>5939716
>>5939717

Even as a lonely young person from a distant rich family myself, I still didn't feel it had much to offer me. I didn't like his attitude towards anything; women, sex, his friends or his family. His sentimentality annoyed me. I suppose I have a much more proactive sort of attitude. In the face of a lonely existence we just make different choices about how to behave.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:53:14 2015 No.5939728 >>5939723 I am definitely this guy >>5939726 and I'm not a phony. I just didn't enjoy the book...man

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:54:58 2015 No.5939731 >>5939726 >I didn't like his attitude towards anything; women, sex, his friends or his family. His sentimentality annoyed me. oh my god well I didn't like how Raskolnikov murdered that lady, you know?

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:56:26 2015 No.5939737

instead of looking at Catcher for Holden v. The Phonies, I kind of see it as an incidental tale about a white suburban teenager experiencing a /city/ for the first time; vice and virtue and lots of it. There's even a lightweight scene with a hooker thrown in just to illustrate this idea.

read it in 2009-10 as a junior in high school; it's his superior work, of course, but I greatly prefer his prose style in Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beams

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:56:54 2015 No.5939739 I was 24 and I detested it. I think the main thing that turned me off was his attempt to mimic the language of a youthful delinquent. Even a very accurate still life of a turd still depicts a turd, and hence does not make for pleasant viewing.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:58:46 2015 No.5939742 >>5939731 hahaha STOP NOT LIKING WHAT I LIKE

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 04:59:05 2015 No.5939743 >>5939737 >lightweight scene with a hooker thrown in just to illustrate this idea. um that scene is probably one of the heaviest in the novel--key themes man

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:00:33 2015 No.5939745

>>5939743
I mean at the end of the day nothing happens during that scene. He doesn't have sex with a sex worker he wasn't going to have sex with anyway. He just learns more about why and how she exists, which is general plot movement moreso than the development of any specific theme

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:00:39 2015 No.5939746 File: 68 KB, 668x712, 1409067983311.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5939723 >I hope you have a kid because you seem like you'd be a good parent. T..Thanks

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:00:42 2015 No.5939747 >>5939742 you dislike the book for idiot reasons hence my response

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:01:42 2015 No.5939752 >>5939739 everything about this post is cancer. I hope you don't write like this irl

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:05:09 2015 No.5939760 >>5939752 That's my point exactly. If you dislike good writing, you will probably love Catcher in the Rye.

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:05:29 2015 No.5939762

>>5939745
him getting socked-in and robbed by her and her pimp isn't a key scene? that whole part is the confrontation of Holden's illusions of innocence w/ reality. maybe if she were just any old hooker it wouldn't be as significant but remember she's the same age as Holden. and he thinks, you know, she's pretty ok, pretty nice, I just want to talk to her. and you know the rest. n.b. after he does his "pretending to be shot" bit, which if you'll notice is the only outward manifestation of his trauma he ever exhibits--fucking crucial

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:11:33 2015 No.5939776 13, hated it because I thought he was whiny. Like it now, because I can understand his thoughts and feelings to a certain extent.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:11:55 2015 No.5939777 File: 89 KB, 1185x622, you.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5939760 it's so stilted mang it's disgusting you can't write you can't think no discernible talent

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:14:07 2015 No.5939783 >>5939777 Does it also kill you? Does it kill you so much you are willing to repeat the phrase for 214 pages?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:16:10 2015 No.5939785 >>5939783 you know who you remind me of? Holden

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:18:22 2015 No.5939793

>>5939762
the scene itself is only important to the psycho-analytical plot-line, though. a thing happens and Holden must react, as ever, but the real use of this scene is how Salinger picks the business of the urban sex worker to illustrate his whole idea about vice and virtue; whatever it is that Holden is trying to figure out at the same time, the key is in the actually existing hooker, not so much the plot line she appears in. that's why I like the scene so much

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:23:35 2015 No.5939807 >>5939793 >whole idea about vice and virtue continue

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:30:52 2015 No.5939835 >>5939737 >white Well, so were most of the poor people in New York at the time... Anyway, I think Holden V Phonies is actually the right way to look at things, which doesn't necessarily mean Holden's in the right.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:35:31 2015 No.5939857 >>5939835 you can't ignore holden vs. the past, that's just as big a part of it

Anonymous Fri Jan 2 05:51:23 2015 No.5939914

>>5939807
I will try
given a few things about Catcher
>it is about an ordinary adolescent protagonist
>who has had a turblent upbringing
>and has been sent to boarding school

it's not only a story about a troubled teenager ending up in a psychiatrist's office, it's also the author's view of humanity. Salinger plays it up as this psychological fiction narrative ("you're probably wondering how," all of the internal monologue etc) but really he's only asking a few questions
>who is holden caulfield
>why does he act this way
>what will he become

the scene with the hooker is the key to this because it's Holden's first encounter with that kind of organized vice and ugliness in the world. This is where Salinger demands that Holden accept some things:
>the world may not beautiful place
>but at least you are still in school and not getting pimped out on the lower west side

as for vice and virtue, it seems clear to me that JD Salinger believed that all of the virtue in the world stands an inevitable risk of corruption.

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