Apparently I don't like anything written after 1983.
This kid I teach sent me home with homework this weekend: I was to read his "favorite ever" book, the "best book he's ever read, ever!!!" (he liked it so much he wrote that on the cover in indelible marker). It is this thing published by MTV Books (oh my God) called "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." Supposedly it is our generation's answer to "The Catcher in the Rye" being as it is a high school coming-of-age deal set in freshman year, 1992 (that's us, y'all!).
It feels like being beaten over the head with a broken "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single cassette. Transport yourself back to that time when you thought you were so fucking revolutionary-cool for smoking your first cigarette and listening to Pink Floyd, and then pretend you got stuck there forever and couldn't get out. I'm going to have to read "Catcher in the Rye" for the third time in three months just as an antidote to this poisonous little piece of crap. The worst thing is that, aside from writing the whole thing in these third-grade-level pseudo-deep sentences, Stephen Chbosky is also biting off Salinger. No doubt you're supposed to hear the echoes when Charlie says things like "Little kids say the strangest things. They really do," but that doesn't excuse him.
Can I quote one thing? Can I? Here it is:
"So, Sam and Patrick and I went to the Big Boy and smoked cigarettes. Then, we went walking, waiting for it to be time to go to Rocky Horror. And we were talking about things that seemed important at the time. And we were looking up that hill. And then Patrick started running after the sunset. And Sam immediately followed him. And I saw them in silhouette. Running after the sun. Then, I started running." (p. 170).
So, then. And. And. And. And. Then. And. And see Spot run. And look, I realize the man's writing for fourteen year olds. But shouldn't you give them something to aim for, particularly when you're a grownup? Shouldn't you at least make an effort not to write everything in breathless dear-diary-life-is-so-wonderfulhorribleweird style? If he were fourteen the thing would be all right, but he's not, he's not, he's not.
I guess some people feel that way about Salinger's writing in "Catcher" too, but somehow to me it's different. What I love most about Salinger is his ability to convey extremely powerful currents of feeling in language that isn't embarrassing. His characters are as uncomfortable to feel as you are to read about their feelings (or to feel your own feelings, for all of that). There's real skill and subtlety in his writing, and real social commentary in his observations. There's drinking, sure, but it's a sort of act of desperation-- he's cut himself loose in the world and the safe thing to do seems to be to behave like an adult, and adults drink, so Holden drinks. In "Wallflower" there are those horrible descriptions of pot-smoking-getting-hammered parties where everyone is so unbearably wonderful and beautiful and the world is just so amazing and... ugh. Completely different phenomenon, and infinitely more phony, if you'll forgive me.
Well, anyway. How mean-spirited of me to trash this book that my student so adored. God knows I certainly won't trash it to him, since it seems to have been therapeutic for him and he's so excited for me to read it. I wonder if I can somehow build on this and steer him towards books that have actual thoughts in them. I thought of having them read "Catcher," actually, but.. it's so cliche to read that in class, and what can I say about it anyway, and anyway they'll probably hate it because Holden doesn't smoke pot and get hammered in people's basements, and he drinks whisky and sodas at bars rather than swigging cheap red wine out of the bottle on the golf course at dawn at laughing at the wild beauty of it all.
Ooh, I'm stopping now before my spleen tries to crawl out of my throat.
It feels like being beaten over the head with a broken "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single cassette. Transport yourself back to that time when you thought you were so fucking revolutionary-cool for smoking your first cigarette and listening to Pink Floyd, and then pretend you got stuck there forever and couldn't get out. I'm going to have to read "Catcher in the Rye" for the third time in three months just as an antidote to this poisonous little piece of crap. The worst thing is that, aside from writing the whole thing in these third-grade-level pseudo-deep sentences, Stephen Chbosky is also biting off Salinger. No doubt you're supposed to hear the echoes when Charlie says things like "Little kids say the strangest things. They really do," but that doesn't excuse him.
Can I quote one thing? Can I? Here it is:
"So, Sam and Patrick and I went to the Big Boy and smoked cigarettes. Then, we went walking, waiting for it to be time to go to Rocky Horror. And we were talking about things that seemed important at the time. And we were looking up that hill. And then Patrick started running after the sunset. And Sam immediately followed him. And I saw them in silhouette. Running after the sun. Then, I started running." (p. 170).
So, then. And. And. And. And. Then. And. And see Spot run. And look, I realize the man's writing for fourteen year olds. But shouldn't you give them something to aim for, particularly when you're a grownup? Shouldn't you at least make an effort not to write everything in breathless dear-diary-life-is-so-wonderfulhorribleweird style? If he were fourteen the thing would be all right, but he's not, he's not, he's not.
I guess some people feel that way about Salinger's writing in "Catcher" too, but somehow to me it's different. What I love most about Salinger is his ability to convey extremely powerful currents of feeling in language that isn't embarrassing. His characters are as uncomfortable to feel as you are to read about their feelings (or to feel your own feelings, for all of that). There's real skill and subtlety in his writing, and real social commentary in his observations. There's drinking, sure, but it's a sort of act of desperation-- he's cut himself loose in the world and the safe thing to do seems to be to behave like an adult, and adults drink, so Holden drinks. In "Wallflower" there are those horrible descriptions of pot-smoking-getting-hammered parties where everyone is so unbearably wonderful and beautiful and the world is just so amazing and... ugh. Completely different phenomenon, and infinitely more phony, if you'll forgive me.
Well, anyway. How mean-spirited of me to trash this book that my student so adored. God knows I certainly won't trash it to him, since it seems to have been therapeutic for him and he's so excited for me to read it. I wonder if I can somehow build on this and steer him towards books that have actual thoughts in them. I thought of having them read "Catcher," actually, but.. it's so cliche to read that in class, and what can I say about it anyway, and anyway they'll probably hate it because Holden doesn't smoke pot and get hammered in people's basements, and he drinks whisky and sodas at bars rather than swigging cheap red wine out of the bottle on the golf course at dawn at laughing at the wild beauty of it all.
Ooh, I'm stopping now before my spleen tries to crawl out of my throat.