Subject: Re: an article on Holden in the NY'er magazine
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 25 2001 - 19:47:22 GMT
Tim, thanks for the url...my New Yorker hasn't arrived yet here in
Connecticut so I was glad to get the article online today. I like
Louis Menand's work in the New Yorker and this is no exception. The
piece has a fine analytical edge that makes a good deal of sense.
However, as much as Menand discusses Holden's Hamlet inspired trouble
with the world, he didn't analyze what Holden was saying about
missing people as carefully as he might have. In fact, whatMenand
seems to criticize as a nostalgia for youth (with an attitude!) may
need to be looked at more closely. Holden talks about the paradox of
telling about and missing people at the end of the novel in a way
that makes me think Salinger understood the problem of being
nostalgic for youth. He may not have offered a solution, but I didn't
feel comfortable with Menand thinking so neatly about how Catcher has
become a tradition of reading about youth being troubled. I think
some of Holden's "young" questions and concerns about life are not
simply adolescent questions and are ongoing, at least in my "adult"
(sometimes) mind. Will
-- Will HochmanAssistant Professor of English Southern Connecticut State University 501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515 203 392 5024
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