Today the literary world lost what i feel is the one reason why we young people were given a voice in society.adolecents and teenagers alike have always been given a hard bargain and have had to face so much without even being given a head start.we are expected to behave like adults but are never taken so seriously.salinger was a man who understood this phase really well...that rebellious attitude....that frustration at not getting what one wants and being forced to do what we hate....the cather in the rye was an answer to all those parents who wonder were they went wrong in raising their children...a must read...
For a man who spent half his life as a recluse, J. D. Salinger left an extraordinary, indelible imprint on popular culture. His influence transcended his literary fame and shaped future directions in film, television, music, and theatre as well as popularising the term “to screw up”.
For most Britons, his abiding contribution was a tragic and unwitting one. On December 8, 1980, Mark Chapman, a disturbed Beatles fan, shot John Lennon dead in front of his home at the Dakota building, a Manhattan apartment complex near Central Park.
In Chapman’s twisted imagination The Catcher in the Rye, which he had discovered “when searching for some kind of guidance” had instructed him to kill his idol because he had become “a phoney”.
The book became “an electric current in my hand, burning my body”, he later recalled, and he began to blur the boundaries between his own identity and Holden Caulfield, the disaffected hero of the novel. Because of Chapman, Catcher has become a touchstone in the continuing debate about whether films, and video games in particular, can encourage violence.
Salinger’s classic is frequently cited as proof that culture cannot be held responsible for acts perpetrated by the people who consume it. However, he deserves to be celebrated for much more. In the decade after its publication more than 70 essays on the book appeared in British and US magazines.
The term “pop culture” became widespread only around 1960, nine years after the publication of Salinger’s book. But by then The Catcher in the Rye had spread its influence into many undernourished corners of cultural life. Along with Elvis Presley’s music and James Dean’s swaggering Rebel Without a Cause persona, it was Salinger’s Caulfield who best dramatised the emergence of a defiant youth identity in 1950s America. It helped to create demand among young people for their own cultural products, a demand that would fuel the youth cultural revolutions that convulsed the West, and later the whole world.
Salinger helped to invent the notion of teenage angst, and is a father figure to everything from punk music to Donnie Darko, and Bart Simpson to The Graduate. In music, Guns N’ Roses and Green Day are two of the modern bands who have worn its influence most explicitly. In film, the director Wes Anderson often features troubled young protagonists clearly descended from Caulfield.
And just as Salinger laid down a template for the future, so today the world of The Catcher in the Rye is reflected in Mad Men, the award-winning series about Madison Avenue advertising executives at the dawn of the 1960s.
Its creator Matt Weiner read Salinger to help him to nail down the morals, language and outlook of Don Draper and his friends. You wonder if the man himself ever knew.
For most Britons, his abiding contribution was a tragic and unwitting one. On December 8, 1980, Mark Chapman, a disturbed Beatles fan, shot John Lennon dead in front of his home at the Dakota building, a Manhattan apartment complex near Central Park.
In Chapman’s twisted imagination The Catcher in the Rye, which he had discovered “when searching for some kind of guidance” had instructed him to kill his idol because he had become “a phoney”.
The book became “an electric current in my hand, burning my body”, he later recalled, and he began to blur the boundaries between his own identity and Holden Caulfield, the disaffected hero of the novel. Because of Chapman, Catcher has become a touchstone in the continuing debate about whether films, and video games in particular, can encourage violence.
Salinger’s classic is frequently cited as proof that culture cannot be held responsible for acts perpetrated by the people who consume it. However, he deserves to be celebrated for much more. In the decade after its publication more than 70 essays on the book appeared in British and US magazines.
The term “pop culture” became widespread only around 1960, nine years after the publication of Salinger’s book. But by then The Catcher in the Rye had spread its influence into many undernourished corners of cultural life. Along with Elvis Presley’s music and James Dean’s swaggering Rebel Without a Cause persona, it was Salinger’s Caulfield who best dramatised the emergence of a defiant youth identity in 1950s America. It helped to create demand among young people for their own cultural products, a demand that would fuel the youth cultural revolutions that convulsed the West, and later the whole world.
Salinger helped to invent the notion of teenage angst, and is a father figure to everything from punk music to Donnie Darko, and Bart Simpson to The Graduate. In music, Guns N’ Roses and Green Day are two of the modern bands who have worn its influence most explicitly. In film, the director Wes Anderson often features troubled young protagonists clearly descended from Caulfield.
And just as Salinger laid down a template for the future, so today the world of The Catcher in the Rye is reflected in Mad Men, the award-winning series about Madison Avenue advertising executives at the dawn of the 1960s.
Its creator Matt Weiner read Salinger to help him to nail down the morals, language and outlook of Don Draper and his friends. You wonder if the man himself ever knew.
we all will greatly miss a literary icon like salinger and i dont think we will ever have someone who understood the teenage angst as much as him.may his soul rest in peace. I for one am surely gonna miss him really badly and will be waiting for the next salinger to come along...although i seriously doubt it...good bye holden...
I like. :)
ReplyDeleteIts not like I've been a die hard J.D.Salinger faithful..
But, I know and love The Catcher!