...and far away
Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Mon, 12 Jan 1998 20:54:59 +0000
I share Brendan's doubts that Holden would have concerned
himself much with politics, even - or perhaps especially - if his
story had been set 50 years later.
Salinger had had a taste of actual war. It's something I myself
just missed; though many of my friends were luckier. It's an
experience - to my mind fearful yet inimitable & enviable -
that seemed to leave most of them with a sense of life's
priorities in which political action, among other things, was
largely irrelevant.
Many of us acquired something of this view - at second hand
as it were - in the same way that Holden did, through the
experiences of his creator. This may be one reason why,
long after we've outgrown the adolescent chippiness, he
continues `to speak to our condition'.
Scottie B.