Originally published on Facebook...
Kids, I have a small confession to make. This may not come as a galloping shock to anyone, but I was probably one of the weirdest teenagers in the United States of America. Leaving aside my social awkwardness and complete lack of anything remotely resembling fashion sense, my love of Star Trek, science fiction and escapist high fantasy I was an aberration. Why?
I hated 'The Catcher in The Rye.' Absolutely loathed every single word of that damn book and thought it was a massive waste of my time and left me wondering just what, if anything I was supposed to take away from it. As teenagers, you're told that this is some kind of fantastic novel that 'really speaks to people your age' and 'it's an icon for rebellious adolescents everywhere' and other such bullshit- but I have a sneaking suspicion English teachers everywhere are given a set of talking points saying this in order to excite high schoolers everywhere about reading this short little turd of an icon of American literature.
I think Holden Caulfield is one of the most irritating characters in literature. All he does is whine about how much life sucks and how everyone is a 'phony.' I've never read a book where I've come away thinking 'damn, I could seriously punch that guy in the mouth for no discernable reason at all!' That's how annoying I found him. He gets kicked out of school, has a frankly creepy relationship with his little sister Phoebe and spends I don't know how much time deciding to get a prostitute and then doesn't do anything with her other than talk. (Which I suppose is fine, but at the time, my sex-starved teenaged self thought that was a massive waste of words and paper. I suspect I wanted to read something lurid involving breasts.)
Perhaps I'm being unfair to Mr. Caulfield. Perhaps I just didn't get it- it wouldn't be the first time that's happened to me when it comes to so-called icons of American literature. I suspect it has something to do with sitting in a pale, industrial classroom in bad lighting being told you have to read these books in order to get an 'A'. (It's worth noting that in American Literature, I didn't get an 'A' and almost earned myself my first failing grade in the field of language arts thanks to an assignment for 'The Color Purple' which I didn't care about and my friend and I totally blew off/didn't fully understand.) 'The Great Gatsby' I found to be groaning under the weight of it's own symbolism (every little damn thing means something! So annoying!)-- 'The Color Purple' well, to be fair, I need to read that again. 'The Catcher In The Rye' I've already expressed myself about- and 'On The Road' well that I can at least appreciate from a purely sociological standpoint. That did speak to a generation and it's an interesting snapshot of life at the time, even if all the characters do is float around the country and do mescaline at jazz clubs. Plus, having seen the fabled scroll it was written on for myself- unrolled in all its glory (the University of Iowa was one of the few places it was unrolled entirely, so that was cool) I'm willing to give it some props.
And despite loathing 'The Catcher In The Rye' and being the aberrant, frankly weird teenager that I was, it is with some ennui and melancholy that I have note the passing of the reclusive J.D. Salinger yesterday. Having had such a bad experience with 'Catcher' I can't say that I've read any of his other works, but writers of quality literature are hard to come by, so even if they produce the most mind-numbingly difficult works of literature that you may loath, reading them is worthwhile and noting their contribution to literature as a whole is also worthwhile- and even though I loathed 'Catcher', I have to officially give props to Salinger. He wrote a book that affected the lives of whole generations of Americans- from teenagers to serial killers and writing that one iconic work that lives on for decades is something that aspiring writers everywhere I think secretly would love to do. Personally, I'd like to finish something and get it published, but if I can get the hang of that, well then something iconic might be nice.
Or maybe that one iconic work is a twist of fate. Maybe you just write.
I struggle with Faulkner. Hemingway makes me roll my eyes, but can certainly write. Fitzgerald gave me a headache, Heinlen made me think, Rand gave me a migraine- but also made me think- Graham Greene is a true artist, Steinbeck blew my mind with 'East of Eden', Kerouac, I can appreciate his impact, but just didn't speak to me- and despite loathing 'The Catcher in The Rye' I can acknowledge the passing of a literary icon when I see one.
Even if I couldn't stand his master opus.
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