Subject: Lookin' for answers and more
From: lray (lray@centenary.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 19 2001 - 15:53:28 GMT
>Is Franny's spiritual crisis something that seems likely today?
>
>will
>--
> Will Hochman
I think for young people today crisis of any kind are amplified and very
common, whether they be spiritual, emotional, depression oriented, or most
likely a mixture of all of these. The search for something to "believe" in is
common for all young people I think, or more generally all people of all ages.
Granted, it has been a while since I last read Franny, but it seems to me that
she is not just confused about her own spirituality, but about her life in
general and that repeating the particular phrase over and over again (I forget
it and I do not have my copy with me at school) is her seeking to find
SOMETHING and that doing so will ease her life, give it purpose, and she will
have all the answers, or at least SOMETHING to cling to. That is my cloudy
take on it and I am probably reading more into it because of my own ongoing
spiritual crisis.
Also, the way she talks about her professors and others seems to be an echo of
the disillusionment we hear from Holden about just about everybody =)
Grrr!! I am regretting not bringing my Salinger books with me to school.
I usually find solice in them and somehow they are a comfort to have around.
Tim wrote:
"if Franny's story were happening today, and if it were told by a less ascetic
writer, how much of a role would television, music, and computer connections
play in her life, and would there be enough room left over for her spiritual
crisis?"
Unfortunately television plays too much of a part of American culture (think
Power Rangers, sitcoms, and the recent "entertainment" provided by the
terrorist attacks), and music can be as superficial as the next. It seems
that a modern day spiritual crisis might very well occur but on a lower and
baser ground, as most people including myself do not have the education Franny
had. While the background to the crisis might be less sophisticated, the
crisis' importance is just as important to the individual.
The computer connections raises an interesting point brought up also in a
sociology class I am taking, Society and Technology, that I have been meaning
to bring up in this list. More and more people are experiencing the internet
in all its various forms every day and for some these online interractions are
taking up huge amounts of their time, just like offline interractions have
been the basis for human contact for centuries. While I think we can all say
that online interraction is a worthy form of intelligent contact, can we also
say that this interraction is AS worth as traditional forms of contact and
does an online community such as this one constitue a "real" community or
simply put a different kind of community?
I would be very interested to hear people's comments on all of this as I am
definitely biased towards the internet and think it is ironic that people call
someone who spends a lot of time on the internet or the computer as
"addicted", while someone who obsesses about a good book and cannot wait until
they are able to delve into it again are viewed as somehow superior and
reading a book is a good thing and there is no negative connotation connected
with it. While some people regard online literature, websites, information,
etc. as a clumsy and secondary alternative to the real thing of a printed
page, not all people feel this way and for them (like me) reading online is
just as easy and enjoyable as reading a novel. I just scroll down instead of
flipping pages =)
OK, so I have done some serous rambling here and I apologize for that but this
is something that greatly interests me and maybe something I attempt to make a
career of.
Peace to all,
Levi
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