The Catcher in the Rye - first edition cover from 1951 - is it too quaint for young people now?
Six members gathered to read from the classic novella of J.D. Salinger. This was the second time reading the story for most of us, and it brought back memories from long ago. But the book was now revealed in a different light by the passage of decades.
Priya, Bobby, Indira, KumKum, Talitha, and Amita after the reading
You will have an idea of the rapt enjoyment with which the individual readings were received from this picture of Talitha reading as KumKum listens:
She is reading the tender recall of his kid brother, Allie, dead of leukemia, as Holden Caulfield is writing an essay on Allie's old baseball mitt, which he kept as a treasure: it had "poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink."
Several of the women found that their teenage sons have, or had, similar rebellious characteristics. A great deal of time in the discussion went into getting to the bottom of Holden's unique personality, as revealed in his adventures and conversations with a variety of people. It's all there in our discussions; please see the Full Record and Account of the session on June 5, 2009.
Here's another picture. Indira and Talitha listen as KumKum reads from the conversation between Phoebe and Holden when the kid sister challenges him to name a single real thing he likes!
The next session will be Poetry, on July 3, 2009, at DC Books on Chittoor Road at 5:30 pm. The novel for the following session will be selected by Bobby and Indira and notified to members. The date has yet to be fixed.
Why are modern young readers being turned off by TCITR, is the question considered by critic and writer, Dana Czapnik in this article:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/01/the-catcher-in-the-rye-fans-jd-salinger-holden-caulfield
“Catcher is not only no longer beloved, it has become something even more tragic: uncool,” says the author. e continues, “broad shifts within culture have rendered Holden’s malaise annoying instead of resonant.” Holden’s melancholia, he says, “feels positively quaint in comparison to the problems kids face today.”
His advice is to read the novel as early as possible in one's life.
J.D. Salinger’s works were not available in digital format until now. His son, Matt Salinger, jealous guardian of his father’s legacy and privacy, has at last given in to the inevitability of e-books. He noted that ‘many young people overseas read exclusively on phones and digital devices, and that e-books were the only way to get his father’s writing in front of them.’ Little, Brown is publishing digital editions of his four books in Aug 2019, making him perhaps the last 20th-century literary icon to surrender to the digital revolution. Besides some of his still unpublished stories will be out soon according to this article in the NYTimes:
ReplyDeletehttps://kochiread.blogspot.com/2009/06/catcher-in-rye-by-jd-salinger.html
‘My father was writing for 50 years without publishing. That’s a lot of material’ - Matt Salinger, his son, confirms there are unpublished works to come
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/01/matt-salinger-jd-the-catcher-in-the-rye
There's a new exhibit at the New York Public Library offering a glimpse into the novelist’s creative process and private life:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/books/jd-salinger-ny-public-library-exhibit.html