Re: Holden and Jane, take 2
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Tue, 19 Jan 1999 15:21:55 +1100
Whaddya mean `creative work'??? I feel like I've just been told about Santa
Claus (: I guess if there's one thing missing in Catcher (and not in a bad
way) it's the parents. I wonder if this was deliberate? I remember reading
interviews with SE Hinton in which she said that she deliberately placed
her characters in `The Outsiders' in an explicitly parentless world, which
certainly worked in the novel's favour ... we really don't hear that much
about Mother and Father Caulfield - for all we know they could be quite
Glass-like, parent-wise (I seem to remember that Holden's mother was an ex
actress or tap dancer or something in an earlier story?) We hear that
Holden's mother is nervous (and frankly, who could blame her (: ) and
doesn't know much about ice skates, and his father funds Broadway shows
that always flop. But caring? We never really know. It's implied that it's
deficient - but another thing I once heard should be remembered: `To those
under 18, those over 18 don't exist'. Teachers do but they get turned off
and filed in a cupboard after school hours. Parents do but only after three
in the afternoon and before nine in the morning. Motorists do, but they
circle your school in endless repetitive formation all the school day. Do
you get what I mean?
Now, here's something that would be fun ... but would really get Salinger's
lawyers' goat (or would it? It may be a legal grey area) - who wants to
start up a Salinger Fan Fiction page ??? (:
Could be fun,
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest
> Mattis, nice creative work...I really enjoyed it but the part about
> Holden's dad didn't ring true...thought it should have been old Phoebe
> setting the shrinks right...or even old Antolini since Holden's dad
> probably would have needed shock therapy to begin really caring...will