olideas

I think I might just copy&paste my reflection from my journal even though it's less a review and more a reflection... (midway I said...) So far I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. First-person narration kind of grits on me sometimes but Salinger just makes Holden come alive so thoroughly that it really really works. I love the style, the matter-of-factness that I’m so attracted to in writing. I love how he often shows without telling (the scene where Holden goes into the phone booth to make a call and realizes he has no one he wants to call comes to mind) and often tells without showing much of anything. Holden’s probably the most honest and self-aware narrator I’ve come across in recent memory and it’s refreshing. I feel like he might have annoyed me if I read this in highschool when most people seem to, but right now he sort of hits the spot. That said, I’m not even halfway yet so we’ll see if I’m still enjoying it when I finish it. (and when I finished:) Finished Catcher in the Rye today. I sort of feel like I may have missed the point. Like, I think it’s a great character study but I feel like if I had been reading it in English, we would have analysed it in some detail and I probably would have got more out of it but probably ended up hating it at the same time. So I suppose I’m glad I finished it and said, ‘hrm. Cool.’ and tossed it in the returns bin and went on with my life. I did enjoy it though. Holden, as a narrator was sort of whiny and pessimistic and I think old Phoebe hit it right on the head when she asked him to tell her something he really liked because there really wasn’t anything. I feel like I know people like that, who aren’t quite sure where they want to be in life because there isn’t something that they’re just mad about. I sometimes feel like I’m crazy about too many things, really.

2020-08-08 07:59