Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Catcher in the Rye a minor classic ‘like fun it is’!
I really use to hate any type of fiction, when I was at school and I especially hated the class novels so much. For English my first year of high school I refused to read the book and believed that I could bluff my way through the end of year exams, but my results proved me wrong. So after that my teachers would force me and everyone else who hated the chosen novels to read the books by dedicating class reading time, were by each student had to read part of the book, as well as lunchtime detentions for not reading at night. I swear the whole experience felt like that scene from Clock Work Orange were the guys eyes are forced open while he has to endure the footage showing in front of him. The whole experience made me even more determined not to read fiction.
But when I went to my last school I was allowed to choose my own pieces to study, and what was best was the fact that it could be any medium, its amazing how well I learnt to argue that anime was a legitimate source for English. So anyway the sour taste I had developed began to mellow as I got more involved with anime and I started reading books that anime’s referenced. Hence I found my absolute favourite author to ever exist J.D. Salinger.
It’s so damn hard to find his works that I’ve had to order them in and I was totally and utterly stoked when I got Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters and Seymour, an Introduction the other day after waiting months to get it, but my world was totally crushed when someone just mentioned to me that it was a sequel to Franny and Zooey, which is the only damn book I don’t have and to make matters worse I have no money left until at least next month, damn it.
But talk about rubbing salt into the wound I just heard that Catcher in the Rye is considered as being only a minor classic novel. HOW CAN THAT BE? That book is totally my favourite book in the world I’ve read it several times, and I love it more each time. The book is such a refreshingly cynically original piece. Sure its about a teenagers struggle with his self but its not angst riddled. The guy may hate just about everything in the world but he still loves his family, and it’s the way he looks at everything so negatively, but still has this indescribable desire to respect that emphasises the innocence of his journey. Ok so he gets a prostitute but he can’t even look at her as he finds her so depressing because of her dress and her attitude. He looks at her in a way a father with a daughter would look at her, finding her supposedly hard attitude childishly cute, and seeing her not as an object but as a person who really wants attention. And he really lives his life for the love of his family, he wants absolute freedom and attempts to seek it out in the coward’s way but (The Laughing Man logo tribute) he can’t leave behind his family, because it is his family that keeps him grounded, or stops him from disappearing. But what I really find the most refreshing about this characters is the way he is able to freely express the facts of life we all hate but don’t really have the guts to admit, he really is an image of the average decent person. He wants to fight the world but he isn’t naïve enough to really believe he can do it he admits that he is yellow. It really bugs me when people have this truly naive belief that they can save the world. It’s ok for a child to have the super hero dreams but after a certain age I think it’s just really pathetic, it sounds harsh but it’s just really hard to explain what I mean.
But the point I’m really making here is that to call Salinger a minor classic is just outrageous, his works are pure cynical genius as far as I’m concerned.

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