2001-02-08
The Catcher in the Rye, posted at 04:20:00
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com One of the best things about literature is when you re-read something, it can mean something totally different to you depending on where you are in life. I'm an English major, but I don't read a lot. It's my own damn fault. I grew up with my nose in a book, and always was carrying a paperback book to all of my classes to read during downtime. My mother was also a voracious reader. It runs in the family. Since I've gotten to college, my free time has evaporated, and the time that is left has been overtaken with going to the movies, watching television, and listening to music. Reading for pleasure is, unfortunately, something I rarely am able to do. The last book I read for pleasure was Maggie Estep's "Soft Maniacs", which was vibrant, witty, and unique. But I only read that because she was coming to the Common Grounds and wanted to be prepared. Anyhow, I first read "Catcher in the Rye" on 8/7/98. I know that because I dated my copy upon completion. When I read it, I wasn't wildly impressed. Eh, it was alright. Funny at times, but I didn't see the marvel of it. Flash to today. I'm teaching it, and have reread it a few times in the last few weeks to help prepare myself. I now love the book. Incredibly so. I am so moved by it, every time I read it. There's an amazing sense of longing that Holden has that Salinger captures so vividly throughout the book, even if he doesn't come right out and say it. Longing. It's the emotion I'm feeling the most lately - a longing for stability in my life, a longing for which direction I want my life to lead once I get done with my internship. Holden was trying to figure out what he wants from life, and so am I. I still find him a bit whiny, but he's so... real. Looking back at that summer of 1998, I think about where I was at that point in my life. I was working at the Sports Camps of MSU, as a CA. It was a thankless job, one where I felt like a number and didn't have much of a connection with anyone I worked with. I don't even think I could name three people I worked with that summer. I was lonely, but it certainly wasn't as bad as that treacherous summer of 1999, which remains the time where I've felt the most depression. Oh boy. That was a bad one. Anyhow, back to the subject at hand. I don't remember much else of that summer of 1998. I didn't like my job, but still liked being an RA, which I was about to return to doing for the second year. I was excited about that. I knew I had two more years left of college, so there was definitely a sense of stability there. Now, without that, I find myself much more drawn to Holden and his three day journey through New York City. It reminds me so much of "Magnolia", which is similarly an episodic journey of lost souls searching for their place in the world, when so much of it is agonizing. Holden could be in that movie. It's about time I make myself a literary pantheon for my webpage. I'd include all the works of art that have changed my life. Brenda Kahn's album "Epiphany in Brooklyn", which runs like a soundtrack for my soul. Alice Walker's "The Color Purple", which was the first book that showed me how dialectic language and characters so dissimilar from myself can still shake my core. Sylvia Plath's poetry, which showed me how one could mash up their own psyche and rearrange it into tiny, bite-sized pieces. Paul Thomas Anderson's film "Magnolia", which manages to capture the desolation all of us feel with eight mesmerizing characters simply living their lives for us, ambivalent to the fact there's a movie being filmed. Michelle Shocked's song "Anchorage," which captures so much emotion in a simple little story that my heart aches every time I hear it. And now I'll had J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," which captures in its lead character a meandering soul who knows about as much about where he's going in life as I do right now.