#SETTING OF THE CATCHER IN THE RYE HOW TO#
#SETTING OF THE CATCHER IN THE RYE MOVIE#

ItвЂ™s a reading that diminishes the achievement of the book drastically. And it emphasizes the damage that biographical criticism can do to our ability to see a writerвЂ™s work. ItвЂ™s just so pointless to reduce the entire novel to some equation: S equals Holden minus one you-know-what. In fact the conflict of multiple perspectives is one of the things that often make literature different from, richer than most mere memoirs. ThatвЂ™s what fiction is about isnвЂ™t it, you know? Creating вЂњcharactersвЂќ who may be different in some respects from the author? Characters who are not always spokespuppets, characters who sometimes may actually represent different perspectives, perspectives that can be critiqued by the perspectives of other characters in the book. ItвЂ™s what a number of intelligent people IвЂ™ve spoken to have come away from the film feeling, something it sought to import with its hokey reenactment of Salinger fleeing like Holden into the mean streets after an editor called Holden вЂњcrazy.вЂќ The idea is that Holden Caulfield is a pure uncritical expression of Salinger himself and that the book should be read as a simplistic working out of his wartime rage against the world-which weвЂ™re meant to share.

#SETTING OF THE CATCHER IN THE RYE HOW TO#

A mistake about how to read any work of literature.ДЄ mistake to be found in much of the commentary as well: that Salinger and Holden are the same. And because, letвЂ™s face it, The Catcher in the Rye has not lacked for attention.Д«ut I was shocked to see the recrudescence (gotta love that word!) of an elementary mistake about the way to read that book-whether you like it or not. I didnвЂ™t pay much attention to Catcher in my recent piece because I was focusedВ on the reverence for SalingerвЂ™s Glass family stories.

#SETTING OF THE CATCHER IN THE RYE MOVIE#

(I should note that the book and film both reproduce the cover of my 1997 Esquire story on my journey into Salinger land, and the book cites a section of my New York Times Book Review assessment of SalingerвЂ™s daughterвЂ™s memoir.)Д«ut one thing the book and the movie have in common that must be dealt with is a big mistake about The Catcher in the Rye. One thing I liked in the film that I first thought was a blunder: showing a вЂњre-enactmentвЂќ of Salinger typing on a typewriter with no paper in it at times turned out to be-someone connected with the film assured me-a deliberate metaphor. ItвЂ™s probably the most important aspect of his later life-and work, alas. The film does leave out the sketchy one-testicle theory, you have to say that for it, but it also-compared to the book-slights the crucial Vedanta connection, failing to devote sufficient time to investigate or examine the nature of the particular rabbit hole of mysticism Salinger slipped into. And a bombastic musical score that sometimes makes it hard to take seriously. And strangely the 700 pages seemed to go by faster than the two-hour movie, which has been unnecessarily padded with all sorts of gimmicks apparently designed to make it more Cineplex friendly. Still, if youвЂ™re a Salinger fan, the 700-page book is worth the read.

Setting of the catcher in the rye