Re: Is Salinger from the Geat Generation?

patrick flaherty (pfkw@email.msn.com)
Sun, 12 Jul 1998 22:13:06 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Kozusko <mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu>
To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu <bananafish@lists.nyu.edu>
Date: Sunday, July 12, 1998 9:45 PM
Subject: Re: Is Salinger from the Geat Generation?


>JDHadden@aol.com wrote:
>
>> ...already hear the disagreements coming...), while Salinger will be
universally
>> understood, for centuries to come JD (not HIM, the other one...)
>
>So, for instance, readers for the next six hundred years will understand
>(interact with emotionally and intellectualy? feel a personal bond
>with?) _Franny and Zooey_, but possibly not _Gatsby_?  Peruvian field
>workers in 2010 will step gingerly over discarded copies of the Viking
>_Beat Reader_ on their way to lunch break, where they will tear eagerly
>through the pages of "D-D Smith"?
>
>
>--
>Matt Kozusko    mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu

Is it really that important to declare Salinger a Beat or a non-Beat?
_Catcher_ is, in my mind, the greatest book ever written.  If someone wants
to call it a Beat Generation book, so be it.  Good literature is good
literature.  The obsession to stick a label on art is becoming too strong.
Look at the music industry.  Their are so many "alternative" bands popping
up these days it makes one wonder what  the "main stream" is.  Let's not
loose sight of what is important about Salinger's work.

Patrick Flaherty

pfkw@msn.com