J. D. Salinger waits until chapter five to reveal that Holden Caulfield's brother Allie died of leukemia-- and this is an excellent characterization strategy-- after reading the opening pages of the novel, you form one opinion about Holden . . . that he's rather whiny and annoying, disaffected and disenchanted, and then you have to totally revise your opinion when you are presented with this new and rather grim piece of information . . . they say that first impressions are everything, but that's not necessarily true, especially if a later piece of information that you learn about someone is particularly relevant; for example: you probably think this blog is a puddle of drivel and you only read it so you can register your disgust with my insipid ramblings, BUT if I divulged that I was not actually Dave, but a ninety-four year old Sri Lankan woman named Ajani who lives in a mudbrick house on the island of Pungudutivu and who loves to post discursive sentences as a pretentious balding American pseudo-intellectual, then this blog would take on an entirely new tenor . . . unfortunately, that's not true . . . but it does raise an interesting question: what game-changing piece of information would you withhold until the middle pages of your autobiography?
I read Catcher again this past spring, and he's still pretty whiny, disaffected etc...though he does genuinely care about his sister. Anyhow, question for you as English teacher and parent of boys about same age as mine....at what point would you let one of yours read Catcher if interested? Our oldest (now 13) wanted to, and we said not yet. But he's lots of Tolkien, Lord of Flies, Mockingbird. He wants to read Game of Thrones...we said not yet. Curious what you think.
ReplyDeleteAlso, sentence re: Seinfeld -- loved. It!
Oops...he's read lots of...
ReplyDeletei would let him at it, it's one of those books that you feel one way about when you read it at 13 and another when you read it at 17 . . .
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