RE: Universitatlity

Mysterious Marcus writes: "The book enjoys universal and timeless appeal
because it is ultimately existentialist in its subtext."

The book does not enjoy a universal and timeless appeal. It's quite dated,
as Cecilia points out. And that's where I disagree with Jim. The worldwide
exportation of NYC in Woody Allen movies and American sit comedies doesn't
give even contemporary Americans much more than a glimpse of the world of
*Catcher*. Which of course isn't to say that readers wordlwide can't
appreciate Holden's prep school universe, on all sorts of delicate and
sensitive levels, but it's not really translatable.

"It's about the 'absurd'"

Insofar as it is about the absurd.

"(see Albert Camus)."

Thank you.

"It could have taken place anywhere in the world. New Nork is
just a backdrop. To talk about culture and location is to miss the
point. Of course New York gangsters don't get it. They were never mean
to. It's a middle class book about a middle class kid."

Perhaps it's a middle class book about an upper-middle class kid in the late
1930's in the northeast of the United States, which would mean it couldn't
have taken place anywhere in world. If it had taken place in Bristol, it
would've been a different book altogether. It's exactly about culture and
location, and people at a temporal, geographical, and cultural remove will
read it from a proportional, ultimately unbridgeable, distance.

--
mkozusko@ursinus.edu
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