Re: ...and he stoppeth one of three...
Emily Friedman (bananafish_9@yahoo.com)
Fri, 04 Dec 1998 14:59:17 -0800 (PST)
---Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie> wrote:
>
> Mattis,
>
> I guess in this instance I understood Salinger to be aiming at
the kind
> of immediacy which comes from the unapologetic, non-explanatory
> 'button-holing' of those opening sentences. If he had given clear
> indications
> that Holden was speaking from the lunatic asylum or even simply
talking
> to a therapist it would have been all too easy for the reader to
keep
> his
> distance, to get 'off the hook', to maintain an amused or coolly
> sympathetic
> attitude in which his hero would have been rather too easily
forgotten.
>
>
> Scottie B.
>
I suppose that it does not matter who Holden is talking to in Catcher
in the Rye, but I have always believed that it was a psychoanalyst or
something like that. Actually, when I first read the book I did not
give it any thought at all. He did mention that he went to some kind
of hospital or something similar, but no one can really know for sure
of who Holden was really talking to. Knowing that I will never truly
know this doesn't bother me at all. It is actually better that way.I
suppose that some people have a need to know everything.
-Liz Friedman
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com