Re: The Worst

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Yo!  I haven't read the Hang of It yet.  I can't stand
reader's digesty or chickensoupforthesoulish crap.  I
might read it just to learn how to avoid sentimentality
like I do rats.  If the Hang of It was a cash crop, I
don't blame J.D. for selling out, heck, if people gave me
money for corn, I'd spit the kernels at them by the score,
no problem.  But it amazes me how people love this obvious
emotional manipulation, how they allow an obvious
puppeteer to take them on an after school special with
tactless abandon and plastic flowers.  As a struggling,
unemployed writer, it makes me very bitter to see these
and other similar books on bestseller lists and shelves
for the gullible sheep.  It amazed me how large the market
is for sappy, didactic, A Simple Abundance-ish self-help
books.  The name itself, self-help manual, is an obvious
warning to independent thought, like skulls and
crossbones.  Jeeze, I've just infused a cyclone of
bitterness in myself, hope it isn't contagious.
I didn't like a Boy in France as much as his other
stories, though I've only read a few.  J.D.'s voice seemed
to distant and his expectations for the reader to feel the
way the soldier did in the wet trench or to feel sympathy
for the soldier were unfulfilled in my case.  The letter
from the parent is such an obvious emotional tactic that
it turned me off completely, I didn't trust the author. 
It's like a politician screaming about the children of the
loggers in hopes of saving the forest industry and showing
pictures of them crying, hijinx, weapons and plastic
flowers.  Makes me bitter and cold and inspires me to
write something real.  I don't know if other readers feel
the same knee jerk reflex to cardboard characters and
inanimate emotions as I do, but to all of these
HEARTWRENCHING stories, I say fooey.    





---Thor Cameron <my_colours@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> Hey, Guys, I'll extend the invitation one more time:
> The Hang Of It   is the Worst Salinger.  Way too
cutesy-Reader's-Digesty.
> 
> How do you call it?  What's the worst of him you've read
& why?
> I really want to know.
> 
> Thor
> 
> 
>
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