JD Salinger's top 3 books

We take a look at what is probably one of the most controversial authors in world literature: JD Salinger. whose work we can consider in its entirety in a full volume like the one presented by this interesting case:

Case - Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye - Lift Up, Carpenters, the Roof Beam and Seymour - Franny and Zooey - Nine Tales (The Pocket Book - Cases)

Reading almost all of Salinger's work, the idea of ​​the contradiction of the civilized human being, of modernity, of alienation, of the contrast that the exit of happy childhood supposes to harsh reality, the notion of psychopathy as something that does not appear. it is no longer a natural human factor, a possible trigger that is always there. To read Salinger is to repudiate him and at the same time worry, to assume the rarity, the strange, the dark thoughts released in literature from an imaginary under the sewer of conscience, custom and morality.

Beyond ideas or concepts that may arise when you try to interpret what you have read, for me, as a simple reader, at times it seems to me that indeed, as I have heard on more than one occasion, Salinger's work becomes overrated literature, very overrated. Although it is true that at other times I think that things might hold up in some way... let me explain:

What is literature as an artistic, humanistic or intellectual representation? Indifference certainly cannot be one of its ultimate manifestations. When you finish a book and you can continue, a second later, frying some croquettes while you lose your sight in the weather forecast, that means that the book has not served you at all, it has not contributed anything to you. Lost time.

That is why it is undeniable that the well-known "The Catcher in the Rye" leaves grounds ... you may not like it because you consider that its character is an unpleasant crazy person. Or perhaps it is because his perspective of the world, which permeates the entire novel, sounds like adolescent anger to you, like that of anyone who has gone through that age when, precisely, you "suffer" from a complete vision of the world ... The point is, for better or for worse "Catcher in the Rye" conveys something, no doubt. The question is to elucidate if it is remarkable enough to consider that it contributes something worthwhile ...

And..., however, the famous novel contributed a lot to disturbed minds such as Chapman (Lennon's murderer), John Hinckley Jr (frustrated assassination of Ronald Reagan, although he managed to put a bullet in his lung) and Lee Harvey Oswald (this yes assassin of Kennedy) or even Robert John Bardó, murderer of actress Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer. All of them confessed their passion for this novel, coming to accompany them on some occasions in the fateful moment.

Does this mean that "Catcher in the Rye" is a novel with some power or magnetism? Or is it a matter of a self-nurtured myth by the psychopaths on duty?

JD Salinger would never have dreamed of such a strange and insane advertising campaign. But things are like this. And in the United States there are a lot of easy weapons and myths.

The only way we can know if the damn novel hides a good writer (which would be something like being able to determine the final value of the work), is to look at the rest of his books. There is not much reference. After The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger only wrote three more books. Anyway, here we go:

All the books by JD Salinger

Nine stories

There are certainly nine, Salinger knows how to count (free criticism for a simplistic graduate). These are nine stories with little formal coherence but intensely supported by the author's disturbing intention.

In many of them the author continues to compose stories from the conflict of adolescence. It must be recognized that the set, however, offers a varied panorama in which we can find even a healthier humor between the darkness and the naughty.

The best story is For Esmé, with love and sordidity, where we find an intricate love story, with the expected disturbing notion about how human beings can come to love, in the author's view...

The volume is completed: The Man Who Laughs, Daumier-Smith's Blue Period, Uncle Wigglily in Connecticut, In the Hammock, Just Before the War with the Eskimos, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes, Teddy, A Perfect Day for Him banana fish.

nine salinger tales

Franny and Zooey

Each character makes up a part of the novel. In the part of Franny at times the story vibrates about the discovery of the farce of living.

Nothing better than the character of an actress to move us between fiction and reality, between the imposed truth that ends up trying to achieve the glory of fiction to end up succumbing to frustration.

The Zooey part is slower, at times tedious in its descriptions. Zooey goes through a bad time in the Glass family (a well-known saga of the author that appears as Guadiana among his concise work) when he sees how the family structure collapses because of Franny , the little sister.

The author's effort to describe the detail ruins what could be an interesting intimate story in the sieve of Salinger's particular pen. But precisely because of this, since it is Salinger, we could have expected to fall into this transformation of the literary into a maddening narrative.

franny and zooey

Raise up, carpenters, the roof beam and Seymour

Two long stories that are intertwined with stories previously told. Many blame the relative failure of this work for the author's decision to abandon literature.

Half incomprehension, half assumption of a certain literary bluff... Who knows? The point is that the adventures of the Glasses and particularly of Seymour did not completely hook American readers.

The first story: Get up, carpenters, the roof beam places us at the moment of Seymour's frustrated wedding. Buddy, his brother approaches the bride's family and together they try to find the reasons for the fugitive groom.

What really sheds the light finally are the flashbacks to Seymour's life before and after that moment. The second part again presents us with Buddy in front of the image of his brother's life, already exhausted by his own decision.

The emotionality of the narrative comes from the detachment that Buddy seems to convey, like a guy committed to stoicism or nihilism to come to terms with tragedy.

The catcher in the rye

Few are those who have not yet read this novel. In the light of what I have already exposed in the general profile of the author consumed by this, his special masterpiece, one can prepare to read with all kinds of prejudices.

Only in the end you will have to draw your conclusions. And what is clear is that when you close the book you will not start frying croquettes while you distractedly watch the weather forecast on television.

The catcher in the rye
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