Re: first encounters

David Schrimpf (david@cybermail.net)
Sun, 25 Jan 1998 20:15:29 -0800 

Someone wrote:

>Then I read that page of Catcher about, eh, two years ago.  Expository Writing
>Class.  My first impressions?  eh, yep, it was a cooler experience than yours.
>I didn't get immediately hooked like you did.  The character--Holden's
>voice--seemed so self-centered that it put me off.  I had no desire to come
>back to the book at the time.

Growing up, and especially going through high school, I had always heard of
Catcher In The Rye but never had it assigned in class and never even
considered reading it. I liked to read (especially toward the end of high
school when I got into science fiction and then, eventually, traditional
fiction) but I think the title always scared me off. "The Catcher in the
Rye". It doesn't mean anything to anyone who hasn't read it. The impression
I had in my mind was that it was written in the 1800s or something and
would probably be about the french revolution or some crap like that. Same
reason I've still never read The Grapes of Wrath or Wuthering Heights.
Those titles just give me a headache. Anyway, I picked it up one day in the
college library when I had nothing to do for a while and read the first
page. I like it, especially that "David Copperfield kind of crap" line, and
decided I'd read it someday. I think I came back to it like a month later
and read the whole thing and loved it.
I knew Salinger had other books/stories but I was so happy with him that I
didn't want to risk ruining it by reading "Franky and Joey" (I saw that
book in a store once and always thought that was the title). So I read
Catcher about four more times, with other books in between. Then one day I
was "surfing"  (HA!) the 'Net and ran into the bananafish page. This story
is going on too long now, so I'll try to condense: I subscribed to this
list, enjoyed the discussions and decided to give Salinger's other works a
try. Read Raise High, F&Z and 9 Stories, liked them all (especially
Seymour: An Intro).

It's funny, the parts of Catcher I like to re-read the most now are so
different from my favorite parts the first time I read it. I used to like
all the stuff about phonies and all the things Holden hates. Now the parts
that stick with me are the more sentimental ones. Like when he talks about
Jane, the museum that is always the same, Allie, etc.

Ok, last "paragraph", I promise:
I just started reading "David Copperfield". I had never read it before
because I was always afraid to read Dickens because I thought he wrote in a
different language like Shakespear or something. Anyway, I was surprised to
find so many similarities in writing style between Dickens and Salinger. I
can't think of two other writers that remind me more of one another. Does
anyone agree with that?

Just like all my writing attemps; I start off with too much detail and
finish up with not enough... oh well. Thanks for listening.


-David Schrimpf