(no subject)
I just saw a picture of Peaches on ONTD and thought it was Bono at first. I'm not sure who loses on that one.
So J.D. Salinger is dead at 90, and in some ways, I'm sad. Of course, I read Catcher in the Rye at the appropriate point in high school, and, of course, it spoke to me. And I read Franny and Zooey in college and thought big thoughts about it. But I think of Salinger as a classic author in the same way I think of Austen as a classic author. Both wrote books that are broadly appealing, that speak to a universal human emotional experience, that have managed to endure despite changing times and fickle tastes. Their books are indeed classics in the truest sense of the word. But, neither author, in my opinion, ever achieved the literary greatness of, say Lolita or Madame Bovary or even Middlemarch. And I'm slightly surprised by the depths of mourning on the internet, which hails his greatness in its grief.
But then, I'm reading some of his quotes that people are posting online, and I'm wondering if I've sold him short. Did I relegate Catcher in the Rye to the domain of high school fiction and fail to appreciate its depth? Is there Salinger that I should have read and have not? Have I somehow missed the things that make him great?
And I'm also thinking of the authors I've loved, authors that would only be considered great in the shallowest sense, like Bret Easton Ellis or Irvine Welsh, but have touched and shaped my life nonetheless. And I'm thinking about how I will lament their under appreciated genius when they are gone. I know I'll try to press their wit and value onto others, probably by means of the internet, and insist that their greatness is bigger than their works would suggest. And I wonder if that's not what's going on here, with Salinger.
And I'm also wondering if lament isn't a particularly pretentious word to use on livejournal.
So J.D. Salinger is dead at 90, and in some ways, I'm sad. Of course, I read Catcher in the Rye at the appropriate point in high school, and, of course, it spoke to me. And I read Franny and Zooey in college and thought big thoughts about it. But I think of Salinger as a classic author in the same way I think of Austen as a classic author. Both wrote books that are broadly appealing, that speak to a universal human emotional experience, that have managed to endure despite changing times and fickle tastes. Their books are indeed classics in the truest sense of the word. But, neither author, in my opinion, ever achieved the literary greatness of, say Lolita or Madame Bovary or even Middlemarch. And I'm slightly surprised by the depths of mourning on the internet, which hails his greatness in its grief.
But then, I'm reading some of his quotes that people are posting online, and I'm wondering if I've sold him short. Did I relegate Catcher in the Rye to the domain of high school fiction and fail to appreciate its depth? Is there Salinger that I should have read and have not? Have I somehow missed the things that make him great?
And I'm also thinking of the authors I've loved, authors that would only be considered great in the shallowest sense, like Bret Easton Ellis or Irvine Welsh, but have touched and shaped my life nonetheless. And I'm thinking about how I will lament their under appreciated genius when they are gone. I know I'll try to press their wit and value onto others, probably by means of the internet, and insist that their greatness is bigger than their works would suggest. And I wonder if that's not what's going on here, with Salinger.
And I'm also wondering if lament isn't a particularly pretentious word to use on livejournal.