I suppose I could have just edited my original post, but that just wouldn't be me.
The main character, Holden, is in a mental hospital and the story we read is told through a series of flashbacks although we don't find this out until the end. I made a reference to "I Am the Cheese" because it's in a similar vein and (to me) a lot more interesting.
So everyone who's been telling me that my age is a deciding factor in my assessment of the book because I don't understand the era of it's origin: True enough (although I DO remember what life in the mid 1970's was like in South Carolina, and although the signs weren't there, we were still segregated. Just nobody spoke about it) but I'm looking at what the book is offering me TODAY. If it's just the fact that the book was a herald of the times and I'm missing it because the times have changed so much I could get behind that if the book had more to offer in terms of the plot.
Throughout the entire book, Holden just never seems to care, and I think that is my biggest contention with it: If he doesn't care, why should we? Taking the book at face value, the story doesn't appeal to me because I cant comprehend being that unsympathetic and self-pitying.
2 comments:
The thing about Holden - and I mentioned this in the longer post - is that he never learns a goddam thing from beginning to end. There is no change, no plot twist, now moment of enlightenment. To me, that just isn't real. People change, no matter how hard they try NOT to, and Holden comes across as a person who refuses to acknowledge that change is indeed happening before his very eyes.
I understand that teenagers are stupid, no matter how smart they are. But something else is that they absolutely NEED to identify with something. For all their faults, there are redeeming values as well, something that they care about. That's reality. Holden is exactly the opposite of that. There is no drive to him, no desire. I look at Holden & I see a hollowed out shell, not a human being.
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