J.D. Salinger

[larvs]

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any cebuano hardcore J.D. Salinger/Holden Caulfield/Seymour Glass fanatics out there?

[DebutsAndIDos]

I once read J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
I didn't like it at all, sorry.

=)

[MrBiddle]

I once read J.D. Salinger's Cathcer in the Rye.
I didn't like it at all, sorry.

Wa pa jed ko kabasa ani. Naa'y tag 99 PhP lang baligya though....

mao ni ang naka inspire sa killer ni John Lennon.

[DebutsAndIDos]

Yup, I read somewhere that the works of Salinger inspire criminals and serial killers.
Anyway, I read that book when I was 13.
Maybe I will try to read it again now.

Who knows? Twelve years may have changed my taste.
=)

[Bigfoot Oracle]

This book has been steeped in controversy since it was banned in America after it's first publication. John Lennon's assassin, Mark Chapman, asked the former Beatle to sign a copy of the book earlier in the morning of the day that he murdered Lennon. Police found the book in his possession upon apprehending the psychologically disturbed Chapman. However, the book itself contains nothing that could be attributed with leading Chapman to act as he did - it could have been any book that he was reading the day he decided to kill John Lennon -

Superficially the story of a young man's expulsion from yet another school, The Catcher in the Rye is in fact a perceptive study of one individual's understanding of his human condition. Holden Caulfield, a teenager growing up in 1950s New York, has been expelled school for poor achievement once again. In an attempt to deal with this he leaves school a few days prior to the end of term, and goes to New York to 'take a vacation' before returning to his parents' inevitable wrath. Told as a monologue, the book describes Holden's thoughts and activities over these few days, during which he describes a developing nervous breakdown, symptomised by his bouts of unexplained depression, impulsive spending and generally odd, erratic behaviour, prior to his eventual nervous collapse.

However, during his psychological battle, life continues on around Holden as it always had, with the majority of people ignoring the 'madman stuff' that is happening to him - until it begins to encroach on their well defined social codes. Progressively through the novel we are challenged to think about society's attitude to the human condition - does society have an 'ostrich in the sand' mentality, a deliberate ignorance of the emptiness that can characterise human existence? And if so, when Caulfield begins to probe and investigate his own sense of emptiness and isolation, before finally declaring that he world is full of 'phonies' with each one out for their own phony gain, is Holden actually the one who is going insane, or is it society which has lost it's mind for failing to see the hopelessness of their own lives?

When we are honest we can see within ourselves suppressed elements of the forces operating within Holden Caulfield, and because of that I would recommend this thought provoking novel as a fascinating and enlightening description of our human condition.

I woke up singing this morning.
I mean, I was happy and all.
But last night, what I really felt like
was jumping out the window.

All I could see were these phonies -
I never left the house though.
They were on TV, in books and stuff,
acting out madman stuff in the goddam movies.

I swear sometimes I think I'm crazy,
surrounded by these goddam princes
making out like life's perfect and all.
That kills me.

Then someone wakes them up,
and they all get sore as hell about it.
But I lie singing in bed -
there goes my crazy sense of humour again...

--excerpts taken from the book The Catcher in the Rye.

i find this book funny. i see pieces of Holden Caulfield in me.

if you read this book (with heart), i bet youÂ* will see Holden Caulfield in you, too.


*bows* to J.D Salinger

[larvs]

wow! nice post! yeah, some people could compare J. D. Salinger with Mark Twain. his books on Tom Sawyer and especially Huck Finn were also banned because it depicted the children smoking while practicing truancy. J. D. Saliger and Holden Caulfield were so ahead of their time. J. D. Salinger also used to say to his children when deciding against something: "Holden wouldn't approve of that!" it's funny, at the same time, beautiful.

[milk]

and Mark Twain is my favorite author. those two books he wrote were my favorites.

Tom and Huck's adventures that is.

I will read The catcher in the rye again tonight.

[terriblenikki]

catcher in the rye is an amazing book. i'd want to read it again, can anyone lend me their copy? i can afford the P99 book though, where do they sell books at a cheap price?

im looking for the classics and national geographic magazines too..

thanks!

[larvs]

it's like, everytime you read it again, your maturity comes into play.

when i first read it, i hated everyone, even the person sitting across me in a jeepney.
read it again, realized Holden was on to something more than just complaining why the world acts the way it is.
read it agian after reading reviews, criticisms, praises, and J.D. Salinger's personal life, i see that J.D. Salinger is, after all, a man in search for God, but not in a religious sort of way.
read his other works, and all of them share the same hero that suffers some kind of affliction that almost always gets fixed by either a realization of sorts or plainly, by a girl.

god! love the guy and his long chin!!

[glassjawed_grrl]

hi.. i've been dying to read catcher in the rye.. anybody want to lend