Re: The Great Salinger May Not Be Universal
J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Wed, 15 Jul 1998 22:08:03 -0400 (EDT)
<<Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Hitchhikers, and I was actually honoured a
couple of weeks ago to meet Douglas Adams and have my copy signed by him
(he's a very nice, very funny, very very bloody tall man) What I meant
was
that by and large, Hitchhikers is not a character driven text as say,
Catcher is (and it doesn't aim to be), although I do admit the idea of
being a stranger in a strange land and feeling lost like Arthur is is a
pretty universal experience. It reminds me of when I was on a Japanese
exchange program, sitting in Tokyo Olympic Village with everyone in my
dorm
hating my guts, thinking `OHhhh boy. My Mum and Dad can't just drive over
and bail me out of this one, can they?' It's a tremendous sense of
loneliness, and if loneliness isn't a universal feeling then I don't know
what is.
Camille>>
You're gonna Hate this, but I was more moved emotionally by the overall
impact of the entire Hitchiker's Guide trilogy--yes, all four books
together--than by any one of Salinger's works. No B.S. A lot of this
has more to do with what I need to hear at the moment than the quality of
literature (although Adam's open ended loopy prose is the perfect medium
for the content of the message he's communicating) we're talking about.
I mean, speaking objectively, Salinger deserves to be taken a lot more
seriously.
But it didn't Feel that way reading it at the time.
WEAPOLOGIZEFORTHEINCONVENIENCE
Jim
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