Posted on 01/28/2010 9:47:54 PM PST by Lancey Howard
Me, too!
Fair point. I should have said the only Salinger story/work I’ve read. I never got around to Franny and Zooey or Raise the Roof Beam...
Sorry, All. Please grow up. My dad, too, was born in 1919, invaded No. Africa, Sicily, was captured at the Bulge, was liberated in April ‘45, retired from the Army in ‘68, and didn’t stare at his belly button. Teenage angst is so yesterday. Get your collective heads out of your collective butts. You sound like lefties.
Read all his novels because all my friends did.
Franny and Zooey
Raise high the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
and some short stories.
REmember the titles but don’t remember any of the books. Teenage angst.
Did like all classics. You know: plot, character, theme. Remember a lot of them.
I don’t get it. This book is what gave people the idea that whiny, angst-ridden teenagers had something to say to the world. It’s been all downhill since then.
Sometimes I wonder if I was the only kid who never got assigned ‘Catcher in the Rye’ to read in school. I went through during the ‘60s, graduated ‘71. Never read the book. Did read everything Heinlein ever wrote, though. Maybe I’ll pick up Catcher and give it a go. I enjoyed the Harry Potter book my daughter gave me, so why not?
LOL, there’s always somebody to come along and post without a clue.
Congratulations.
Howzat again? I dis an irrelevant libtard icon, and you make noises about lefties??
LMAO!!
I graduated twenty years later and was never assigned the book.
Pissant said:
I wasn’t particularly enthralled with Catcher in the Rye, but my english teacher was.
You said:
Me, too!
The poster probably took it that you were agreeing with the teacher.
Don’t bother. If you like Heinlein read Asimov Robot trilogy: Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn. Fun.
Well, I agree..sort of.
I have a friend who has a kid in private school. Her required reading includes SOME of the classics, SOME current literature and the rest...her choice. One of her choices was a book by Jim Carrey. I guess reading anything for credit is better than not reading at all.
Maybe I’m jealous. If I had a choice to read a book of my choice, and get a grade on it, I may have sailed thru Literture. But I learned a lot during that class, reading the classics.
I have to agree with you.
It may have started a downward trend.
Hope he knew the Lord.
I prefer books that promote purity to children, something we are in short supply of in this country and have been for 40 to 50 years. CS Lewis’ Narnia books. I think it’s a shame teens are forced to read Catcher in the Rye. Yuck.
If you want gritty give them Lord of the Flies. At least that shows kids what Jesus taught, that man in inherently evil at his core.
Is that what Jesus taught?
I read and enjoyed the Foundation Trilogy and Fantastic Voyage, but I liked Asimov’s short stories the best. ‘The Last Question’ and ‘The Billiard Ball’ were especially memorable, as well as another one (the title escapes me) about a space traveler who chases Jesus from planet to planet, always arriving just a little bit late.
No, it's what the Catholic Church and most charismatic 'Born Again' Christians want to believe He taught.
Jesus taught us to pray to "Our Father", and that we are all part of a Divine Family. We, the human race, erred and have fallen, but Jesus gave forgiveness freely, without adherence to any creed, and without falling at His feet in abject worship.
Now we may get the real story, as well as all the fiction he has been writing over the decades and not publishing.
Goodbye to one of the greats. Underrated by many, but we shall see.
Catcher in the Rye was written by an adult for adults. You may like or dislike it. However, it is an attempt to analyze a weak adolescent's failure to come to grips with adult sexuality in a 'phony' world.
Holden Caulfield must use that word 100 times in the book. Holden wants to be a saint and save all the little kids from falling off the cliff (that's how he pictures the 'catcher in the rye'), meaning he wants to save them from the filthy world of perverted sex, the obscenities routinely scrawled on school walls, girls who wear 'falsies' etc. But he is weak, and follows those impulses rather than retire in seclusion like his older brother D.J. (who represents J.D. Salinger).
He unrealistically projects his kid sister Phoebe as a sort of saint, and breaks down at the end of the story while watching her innocently riding on a carousel. It's the knowledge that her innocence won't last that causes his mental breakdown. The entire story is related in the first-person as one long uninterrupted talk to a psychotherapist.
For an upbeat coming of age story by Salinger, read De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period. It's in Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger.
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