J.D. Salinger passed away today and it's got me thinking about his fiction. To explain how much I love The Catcher in the Rye is like trying to explain why I like baseball: I just do. Something in my brain clicked the first time I read that book (in Heather's Jackson Hole apartment the summer I turned fourteen) and I've never looked back. His rule-breaking style of writing and his understanding of adolescent angst is unparalleled. I respect that he was a recluse and didn't want to be hounded. Great artists aren't usually the ones in the tabloids, they're the ones quietly putting out masterpieces. I can only hope another book will come along and sweep me off my feet the way The Catcher in the Rye did.
"I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse."
-Holden Caulfield
No comments:
Post a Comment