Catcher in the Rye

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by Challenger78, Mar 25, 2008.

  1. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    my response to all three can be summed up as follows:

    :zzz::zzz::zzz:
     
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  3. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    What literature have you loved?
     
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  5. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I love Indian literature, British, Spanish and French literature (the last two in translation).

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    As an indicator, Somerset Maugham is my favorite.

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  7. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    More indicators. I have tried Maugham and not finished. Of course I do this a lot, swirling around like a buzzard. Whom else?
     
  8. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    From older authors, I like Dickens, Austen, Garcia de Marquez, Swift, Twain, Voltaire, Balzac. From newer ones, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri. I like the style of Michener and Wilbur Smith, the language of Cronin and John Irving. I like story tellers.

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    Which Maugham have you tried?
     
  9. bsemak Just this guy, you know Registered Senior Member

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    Ok, Mine was quite the opposite I must say.Fitzgerald I would call a great storyteller. I have never read Dickens or Austen, although my wife keeps telling me to do so. Of indian writers, I like V. S. Naipaul (spelled correctly?).

    What about the great Russians. I am on Dostojevski now, Crime and punsihment.

    Or Joseph Conrad? He is also one of the great classics.
     
  10. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I found Dostoyevsky tedious, even though he tells a story. He seems determined to wallow in verbosity. Couldn't get through Anna Karenina. Loved Maxim Gorky.

    Lord Jim? Its one of those I've been meaning to get to in the last three decades.

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    Love Kipling too. His short stories can be read for pleasure over and over. Also Faulkner. Haven't read much fiction for some time now. Must not forget Amitav Ghosh (Calcutta Chromosome, Glass Palace) or Vikram Chandra (Red Earth, Pouring Rain)
     
  11. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    Hmmm. Thats what my teacher keeps telling me, but as a teenage i cannot empathize with this guy. Like WTF?..This is rebellion ?. No, It's cowardice.
     
  12. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    he's not meant to be a role model or necessarily likable. I did like him in part. I was also revolted by him.
     
  13. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    yes, his focus is not on narrative, it is on character and change in character. But let me try to seduce you into liking him, because I think part of what Dostoyevsky is doing is something you would respect SAM. He creates characters with differing skills, temperments and philosophies and then lets them crash into each other. More than perhaps any other author he does not end up affirming one point of view. He allows several to be 'right' or make sense and in their struggles and mutual suffering and conversation, small changes come about.

    I love Dostoyevsky.

    I also like good story tellers. I find it odd, in a way, you included Austen. I mean there are stories, but they are very middle to upper class english nothing really happens type stuff. I also loved Garcia Maquez. Even more Fuentes and the short stories of Cortazar. Wild.

    One Japanese writer Murukami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. A lot of story. Really different. Odd. Toss in a little surrealism.
     
  14. idiot0boy Registered Member

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    I haven't catcher for years, as i remember it's not the easiest thing to read and a finished feeling that Holden Coldfield wasn't a very nice person.
     
  15. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I gave up on him after reading Crime and Punishment in school; but you make me feel like I was too hasty.

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    I'll have another look; he's a little dark for my tastes, from what I remember.

    Austen is a personal relationship. I read her very early and identified with her predicament in several ways, being the kind of person who is surrounded by well meaning but intrusive people who cannot fathom or who I cannot seem to penetrate through the thick fog of conventionality that surrounds their behaviour and thought. I understand her need to dissect them and laugh at them because otherwise the pall of everyday existence is brain numbingly dull. She lives in a world that is restricted to her by the expectations of others and makes gentle and not so gentle merry of them.

    Haven't read Cortazar.
    Yes, I heard that is his best work, I'll look it up the next time I dive into a used book store. I browsed through the Elephant Vanishes but don't recall if I read it.
     
  16. bsemak Just this guy, you know Registered Senior Member

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    I had great poblems with it. Maybe because I read it at the age of 31 not 17.......

    I liked the language, but the main character started to annoy me. My wife found the book awful
     
  17. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    see, is it really a classic? Or was it just so offensive and controversial for its time that people assumed it was great groundbreaking literature?
     
  18. skaught The field its covered in blood Valued Senior Member

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    One of the funniest pieces of graffiti I ever saw was "Fuck you Holden Caulfield". Laughed my ass off!
     
  19. skaught The field its covered in blood Valued Senior Member

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    Good book though, yeah...
     
  20. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    Finally. we're done with the damn book. yeah, I'm gonna go graffiti "Fuck you Holden" somewhere.
     

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