I’ll try to get a gaming related post up later today, but I just wanted to take a minute and acknowledge the passing of J.D. Salinger yesterday.
For whatever reason, likely due to it’s language and content clashing with the mores of the small Southern town in which I grew up, I was never assigned The Catcher in the Rye in high school. I bailed on my English major in college, so I never encountered Catcher in a classroom setting. I didn’t read the novel until after I had graduated, actually. I remember reading it during the month or so I stayed in Greenville, working at Ted’s and housesitting, taking in Holden Caulfield while selling six packs and kegs. I enjoyed the book and recognized why it was great, but my worry about being “phony” had already been shaped by punk rock, Emerson, and Nietzsche before I met Holden. Still, Salinger was a great one. Maybe now we’ll get to read more of his work.
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Really, you think so? I’ve always sort of thought that Catcher was considered “great literature” because it was written by a man. If, in the ’50′s or even now, the very same story had been written by a woman, it would have been tossed in with YA or chick lit… I guess I should probably see it as great literature either way, but I’ve always been struck mostly by the double standard.
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I think the book is well done, regardless. But I think it’s iconic status has to do with it’s publication date more than anything else. You’re exactly right — written today (by a man or woman) the book would be YA stuff (except maybe for the language), but that’s only because Catcher made it possible. The gender issue is tricky. I see your point. We don’t have a comparable work from a woman from the same time (in terms of cultural impact), but I’ll certainly chalk that up to sexism in publishing and taste. Although we do get To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960.
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