Subject: Re: Hello!
oconnort@nyu.edu
Date: Tue Feb 11 1997 - 11:52:30 GMT
Jennifer Kelly said:
> I'm just going to add one more thing. While I was reading some Salinger
> at one of my aforementioned brother's long-ass indoor track meets, a
> mother of one his friends, who also happens to be an English teacher at
> his HS, asked me what I was reading. So I showed her saying that I was
> just reading it for fun, go to sleep with a good book, kind of
> reading. She replied that if she were reading that it would definately
> be simply for her 'go to sleep' kind of reading. Can anyone understand how
> angry that made me?
I've found that a lot of adults -- ESPECIALLY English teachers -- have a
kind of backlash reaction to Salinger, as if he were an embarrassing
enthusiasm that dates back to when they were younger and more
idealistic. That's not fair to say; it's a sweeping generalization
about people, but I've often run into that attitude. One English
teacher I had would not discuss Salinger at all. He said, "Most of us
consider him to be a minor writer," and that was the end of that.
Don't let it make you angry. Lots of us have read Salinger in a happy
trance and are not ashamed to admit it. (The first Salinger story I
ever read was "The Laughing Man," when I was in the backseat of a car
**as we drove down the highway along the Hudson River**, so I was able
to look out the window and see roughly where the kids on the team would
go to play ball. Now, there was a cosmic coincidence!)
--tim o'connor
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