Re: translations, readers of TCITR
Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:18:46 -0800
Mattis Fishman wrote:
> Is there a time (and I suspect there is, though I am
> too old already) when one is at an in between age when he becomes almost
> embarrassed by Holden?
>
> Last, and closest to home, my wife has been heard to say, "I don't think
> I can't read this, I mean all these obscenities, but I can see why *you*
> like it" - and I know she can.
For any reader who has ever identified with Holden, I don't believe they can
retrospectively be embarrassed by him because at that particular junction of
his soul when the tale is told it is a very dark, bleak time when the full
weight of the hypocrisy of the world is all too evident and which DOES give
you a sense of nausea and does make you want to use as many obscenities as
you can. Once you've been at that point of despair, if anything you feel
embarrassed for people who have NOT reached that point. To quote Courtney
Hole: "You will ache like I ache."
It's intellectually lazy to say "too many swear words, I can't get past it."
You have to wonder to yourself WHY he's using those swear words. Basically,
he's so sick and tired of the way the world articulates itself ("fuck you's"
everywhere) that his spiritual exhaustion compels him to use that very
language as something akin to the unconscious challenge of a spiritually
cornered rat in order to tell his story and get his point across which is
NOT to add to the "fuck you's" but is an attempt (albeit confused attempt)
to clean them up. Did Lenny Bruce die in vain?
And that is why idiots always try to ban CITR because of the language and
the language alone. You have to look past the language in the same way you
have to learn about Tourette's syndrome.
However, he is not a nihilist, he does not succumb to solipsism or ennui.
Sure, he needs to be caught just as much as he wants to catch others
himself, and therein lies the ultimate validation of his soul. He has too
much of a heart to follow his train of thought into being a sociopath or a
terrorist. Yes, he's at the threshold of being a sociopath, but his heart
will not let himself forsake the human race altogether.