What Is The Significance of J.D. Salinger? Of ‘Hapworth 16 1924’?
I feel like I could write about this for the rest of my life.
Luckily, I don’t think I’m the only one.
I don’t know what Kushner has to say; I’d not heard of her before very recently, but I know my people when I see them, and chances are, if you asked her about ‘The Catcher In The Rye’ she’d have some thoughts worth sharing. Whether or not she’d share them would depend on you, I imagine. Either way she’s a winner. I can feel it. We can talk more about her later, if you like.
So! A word on Salinger. I suppose we’d best start here.
If you ask me, Salinger was about one thing and one thing only: Intimacy. Real intimacy in real human beings and the negative spaces carved in absentia. And he remains the heavyweight champ. Indisputably.
(…)
Wait. What!? Quixote? Curse you Cervantes!!!!
S.E. Hinton is his only peer and funny enough, now that I think of it I’ve never heard of someone making a direct comparison between ‘Catcher’ and ‘The Outsiders’. Seems like there’d be a good thesis in there, somewhere, yeah? I toy with the idea, but my mind always drifts away to “Which book is better?”/”Who’s the better writer?” It’s an affectatious self-allowance…
