I'm going to have to go with Will on this one - I think it's abortive to ignore anything about any subject that interests you - sometimes the things that are pieces of uninformed rubbish teach you almost as much as the good ones. To me, the critics (or the Critics, as Brendan seems to have cast them) are just like us - they're just interpreting things, there isn't really any right or wrong answers. I think I only started thinking of Salinger in a scholarly sense when I borrowed `Salinger - A Critical and Personal Portrait'. It was also this book that introduced me to the Glass family and made me want to read Nine Stories. It also spurred me on to thinking about a lot of the questions I still ask about Salinger and clarified a lot of things - for example the whole Zen influence. I don't ever like to limit myself by saying `no' straight out to something - I guess the idea is to just be selective about what you read. You don't even have to take it all on board, you'll just be much richer having sifted through it all - a bit like this list really (: As for criticism per se, I actually really like people telling me what's wrong with my work about 90% of the time, because ultimately you want to make it better. Nothing's worse than working in a vacuum, not really knowing anymore what's good or bad. But the other 10% hurts you like hell, but it's like anything - you have to learn from it and live with it. Camille P.S. Like I wrote in an earlier mail (and you must tell me if you have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm not sure all my messages got through) - I think by the very nature of this list, people shouldn't be getting worried about `personal' jibes. Let's all just leave our egos in our real lives and get down to the business of good old literary discussion and debate, *please!* Camille Scaysbrook verona_beach@geocities.com THE ARTS HOLE @ www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442