Subject: Re: telephony
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Sat Mar 31 2001 - 22:27:43 GMT
On Sat, Mar 31, 2001 at 06:00:00PM -0500, Jive Monkey wrote:
> I've never found Holden funny, personally. I laugh like a hyena whenever I
> read "Roofbeam," but if there's a great deal of humor in "Catcher" then it's
> lost on me. That kid is suicidal for christ's sake!
I think it's his deadpan approach that kills me. His way of filling
in tons of details in his nerve-wracked, off-kilter way.
Also, there is that way he relays his experiences, as in what happens
with the cab drivers, like Horwitz, who gets so angry that Holden
worries he'll drive the cab up on the sidewalk. I always find it a
scream when Holden tries to tell us these stories and, in the course
of it, be a little formal and a lot under control, when he's really
relating stories of borderline insanity.
Or he presents marginal characters, like the guy he calls "Commander
Blop," whom he runs into at a nightclub with an old girlfriend of D.B.
His description of how the guy has (forgive me; I'm paraphrasing from
memory in all of this) one of those handshakes that tries to break
every bone in your hand. We have all met guys like that, no? It's a
combination of the familiarity of the character and Holden's
super-serious introduction of him that makes it so wildly funny.
I won't deny that there's a very sad and urgent streak to Holden, such
as when he finds himself disappearing every time he steps off a curb,
or when he is spooked by the echoing sound of laughter on the night
streets.
These aspects of his character are what make him tragic and memorable,
a troubled young man on the brink of one kind of disaster or another.
He carries his disasters with him like so much spare change in a hip
pocket.
--tim o'connor
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