J.D. Salinger | J.D. Salinger
Apr.03.2013
It's questionable the degree to which anyone can actually be taught to write, but according to one source Salinger blossomed while taking Whit Burnett's writing class at Columbia University. Following is a quote from Fiction Writer's Handbook, by Hallie and Whit Burnett.
"...there was one dark-eyed...
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Jul.19.2012
We'd have fewer cases of teenagers going postal if CATCHER were used to teach about mental illness. Like John Voss in EMPIRE FALLS, and Andrew Clark in the cult film, BREAKFAST CLUB, Holden Caulfield shines a golden light on the teenager in crisis.
Try and view CATCHER as less about...
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Jun.27.2012
As an undergraduate in the '60s I could barely get through CATCHER. I didn't care about some crude spoiled preppy kid who couldn't get his act together. In a word, I was clueless.
I reread the book last fall and discovered something profound, that Holden was suffering from PTSD stemming from the...
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Apr.29.2012
I saw Bruce Springsteen and his larger-than-ever E Street Band on Friday, and to say it was a religious experience is not much of an exaggeration. His concerts over the years have evolved into something akin to a secular humanist revival meeting. How “secular” they are can be argued as some...
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Feb.12.2012
photo: Audiobook of Speak, from booksamillion.com. (Wikipedia's image was very faint.)
I volunteered to make a CD from the tapes of this title, so I figured I'd get some computer work done at the same time. I do that from time to time for free. I tell the people how long...
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Dec.02.2011
We've all had them--the teacher whose class you hated to attend: who talks without saying anything or plays favorites or humiliates or any number of abuses of this exalted role in front of the class.
In The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger burns Mr. Spencer into our memory with one of my favorite...
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Apr.06.2011
A bit of an eye-opener today: an e-friend of mine wrote to say that I should be congratulated, that a 76,000-word, complete novel is a real achievement. Funny that I'd never, not once, thought of it that way. I've always been so hellbent on being published that the actual completion of the...
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Dec.09.2010
Mid-December 1975, and I was trapped in yet another honors English class with a teacher who had already bestowed lavish praise on my older sister’s perfect essays two years earlier. Apparently she was the writer in the family, and I was a mere second best, despite my own impressive grades and (...
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Oct.24.2010
'Catcher' caught: Audiobook of Salinger novel made for library service for the blind
By Hillel Italie (CP) – 3 days ago
WASHINGTON — Push the play button and hear the famous teenager's lament. It is recited in a sly, middle-aged twang, like an adult reading in a grade school classroom, one...
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Aug.09.2010
NEWSWEEK's article about J.D. Salinger is in part because of his famous book, The Catcher In The Rye, in part because of the mystique grown about the reclusive writer. And partly because of two new literary event regarding Salinger, a two-hour documentary, Salinger, and a new, extensive biography, ...
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