Subject: Nazis, Brazilians, and other Family Fun
From: Rod Lobaugh (ral@xc.org)
Date: Mon Jun 16 1997 - 12:00:34 GMT
hey folks
Jon Tveite wrote:
>
> Has anyone pointed out, yet, that there's a big difference between burning
> books and burning *a* book?
Yeah, I tried to. Probably failed miserably.
Re: Brasil eats Bananafish
I know I missed this thread because I was to self absorbed in pukeing
and all (just got over the flu (didn't you want to know)) but I do
recall that one of your problems was not being able to find
Salinger in English, right? While I was in Brazil in Jan-March of
this month I found some Salinger works in either the Rio de Janeiro
or São Paulo airport, I managed to find some Salinger in Inglais. I
don't remember which books they had, but I know I almost bought a
copy of Nine Stories for plane ride but decided it was time to give
Sophie's World a crack since I live in Norway and all.
Sorry I can't tell you which airport they were at. I was at both
and quite a few others during my time in Brazil. The only
specific I remember about any of the Brazilian airports was seeing
the desolate Iggy Pop in São Paulo.
Oh and then there was this excellant thread:
helena wrote:
> The thing about Catcher is, it's great to know you're not the only
> person ever to feel completely like shit, but at the end, what
> happens to Holden? He compromises, he's gotta go back to school,
> back into the phony, crappy, ugly world.
>
For me, Catcher helped me in the way of just seeing that somebody
else was fighting that same war.
(does that sound lame? sorry if it does.)
> It doesn't make you feel 'Yes, I can change things! Life CAN be
> great.' It just makes you feel that no matter how hard to try to
> reject it, you're still a part of humanity, you start 'missing'
> people. It's not going to go away, or get any better.
>
Question: Was it Holden who rejected humanity or humanity that
rejected Holden. I've always looked on it as the second. That
humankind's tendancy towards the superficial was a slap in the face
and a shot in the gut to him. ("Without regard to well being.
Without an inkling of compromise. Handshakes are nothing but a
suttle 'Fuck You'" and alas so are a huge part, if not all, of the
"phony" aspects of modern society. At least from where I'm sitting)
> And as for suicide, if you're going to kill yourself, you're going
> to kill yourself. You're not going to harbour a wish to survive
> because of a fictional character from a book set in the fifties (?)
> who, in the end, is STILL getting harrassed about whether or not
> he's going to apply himself at school.
I can't see that a fictional book could have that kind of impact,
unless the person ends up going into some kind of psycotic obsession
anyway. But (hear the resounding "but") I think works like CitR can
impact someones life strong enough to help lead away from the despair
that results in suicide.
In some ways, it did that for me. It help give me a little hope that
the search was valid. Someone else cared enough to write a book on
it. Also, don't discount the impact of understanding. For me,
I grew up around people that had no clue where I was coming from.
That moment where I realized Salinger or Holden or whoever understood
very similar, if not the same, feelings I had was very significant
in my life. It did not make my life complete but it helped me
understand a bit more.
And I only read CitR because my junior accel. English Teacher said it
"was very blasphemous."
not very blasphemiously,
Rod
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