December 23, 2004

• She looks like a man, man.
• I could tell you about how in my school we had to read all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it.
• I think she might look less masculine if she didn't look so pissed.
• "I guess one person can make a difference, but most of the time, they probably shouldn't." -Marge Simpson
• It made me shoot Reagan! Or maybe RFK? I read the book in high school, where we took pains to over-analyze it and deal with the teacher's Freudian troubles. I have since learned to hate all Salinger. Does the book deal with difficult themes? Yes. Should we expect freshmen to be able to deal with them? Yes. Fer Chrissakes, these folks are going to be fightin', fuckin' and votin' by the time they graduate. It's a decent enough book. My only real objection is that shitty teachers tend to do more harm than good (it was years after reading Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath that I found out Steinbeck was actually a pretty good writer... Though I still won't touch Toni Morrison).
• So she hasn't actually read the book, then? If a student gives his teacher an analysis of a book after doing some online research, and not actually reading the book, what kind of grade should he be looking at? And if a parent does it? I love the book, myself. A great existentialist piece.
• Thats what the general opinion around here has been Smo. The little line about Sparknotes has turned her into somewhat of a laughingstock. I feel bad for her son though.
• Interesting article. By trying to ban the book from the entire grade's curriculum Minnon sparked a number of valuable debates regarding censorship, parental involvement in public education, as well as the issues within the book. I love how that works when someone is trying to suppress something. Yay for the principal standing behind the teacher and I'm glad Minnon is now actually reading this book. It is an unfortunate failure of her own education that this is the first time she had heard of this particular book.
• The backlash against Catcher... in the United States is a poisson process. Kind of like suicide at MIT (pdf link).
• I don't specifically recall whatever the scandalous stuff is supposed to be (other than, yeah, he did say "fuck") and some of what I remember is confused with A Separate Peace, but I think you would like it humandictionary, especially given that you'll be reading it disencumbered by pop quizzes, study questions, and the daily analysis that shapes the way many people first take it in as middle/high school students. Back in high school (or heck, even now), if I heard that a certain book was "controversial" in any way, it would certainly be at the top of my list to check out the next time I was at the library.
• I read it a few years ago for the first time and just didn't enjoy it. I'm a picky reader, though. I think, PY, that he has some fairly antisocial thoughts, and doesn't he have sex with a hooker? Maybe I'm thinking of a different book too. It's not required reading in schools here, although Lord of the Flies was (and I loved it).
• "There are other alternative things we could read rather than what is in that book," he said. Well spoken!
• "That's where we got a lot of our information about (Holden Caulfield) being with a prostitute, his lying, his drinking, using girls for pleasure and his depression problems," she said. Because naturally, none of the 14 year olds in Andrea Minnon's town know anything about alcohol, sex, or depression. And they never will, either, as long as the adults do everything possible to avoid discussing these forbidden topics. It only works if everybody participates, though. One blabbermouth teacher is all it takes to ruin all of the innocent angels forever!!
• tracicle: that's the book, but he just speaks with the hooker, no sex. And it seems to have fallen of the top 10 challenged books in the US since 2001.
• I had the great fortune of reading this book in an English class taught by an excellent teacher. Her response to the controversial parts: "So he says 'fuck' in the book. So what?"
• Once again, the strangeness of Americans amazes me... :-S
• But I don't want to be exposed to Holden.
• If the mother had read the book when she was a teen (the optimum time, IMO, to read Catcher), she wouldn't be such a prude now.
• To those who may think she is trying to shelter her child from the real world, Minnon said she doesn't believe any parent can do that. "I want him to discover things for himself, but with my guidance," she said. Bullshit. By guidance she means control. She's the same type of person who would object to The Great Gatsby because she considers the passage in which Myrtle Wilson's breast gets ripped off--in a car accident-- to be "sex-talk". And to make it worse, she hasn't even read the fucking book. Bet she doesn't care if her kid watches "Desperate Housewives", though, because she's watching it too. Sorry. Done.
• Can't we all just admit the book sucks now?
• We used to get angry and frustrated at these types of parents when our kids were in school. How does "I don't want my child to be exposed to offensive language and experiences before s/he can handle them" transmogrify into "Ban these books because prostitutes, magic and homosexuals aren't a part of my insanely narrow worldview."? Gues what, Mrs. Minnon? My kids read whatever damn books they wanted to, and if I had a child in your class, I'd fight you tooth and nail. Her son has a choice to read the book or not already: all she's trying to do is prevent the rest of the world class from being allowed to read it as a part of the curriculum. Way to go, stupermom. If the opt-out solution already in place isn't enough, this woman clearly has an axe to grind that the school should not in any way indulge.
• Can't we all just admit the book sucks now? While I was reading it for the first time (at the all-too advanced age of 30) I thought it sucked. After I finished it, it all made sense, and I liked it. I wish I had read it as a teen (same goes for On The Road, which I also read too late).
• I wondered how much time it'd take for rushmc to come and do his usual 'CITR sucks' routine. We can go home now, the thread is complete.

• What do the monkeys think of this?

  Can't we all just admit the book sucks now?

  I'm not a fan of the book, but since it is fairly American, if you're an American and you haven't read the book yet, then go for it. What's the worst that could happen?
• I'm def. going to read it, just for the pleasure of imagining annoying this woman. I know she will never know that I have chosen to read it BECAUSE of her, but the thought still warms my heart. And just to extend that fuzzy feeling, I brought this up in class and now my entire Ap english class wants to read it!
• Way back in the late '50s, when I read "Catcher in the Rye", it was a minor cause celebre. I can't believe it's stil making headlines. Reading it as a teen, I didn't focus on his adventures on the seamy side except as they related to adolescent angst. The theme of his dream about saving children who were running through the rye, combined with his inability to save himself, probably seems trite in this day, but it was new at the time. In my 20s, I read the few other books Salinger published, and liked them - especially "To Esme". The picture of Esme sinking into the continual prayer thing was powerful. It still has a certain attraction for me, and I'm extremely secular. I doubt that I could read any of them today with the same feelings I had then, and have to suppose that they're too dated to make the same impact on you young whippersnappers that they did then on my generation. But "Catcher" was pretty shocking in its day.
• Rocket88, your statement's right on about her reading the book. Stupid broad should allow her kids to have the education she obviously never had. I'm sure the little darling watches Fox TV and sees what ever movies his buds are watching. But that's different, right, because we should be automatically suspicious of books--it's insanely corruptive when it's the Written Word.
• While in school, I found CITR kind of annoying, though a number of my classmates got very into it. I prefer Salinger's short stories, especially "For Esme..." and "Teddy." I think old JD would approve of his books still making parents stamp their little feet in this day and age. And if this whole kerfuffle started by an uneducated, overprotective, thought-policing person ends up making students read more Salinger, then as RaeRae said, that's both a Good Thing and a beautiful irony. The most "age-inappropriate" book I was ever assigned in school was Mary Renault's The King Must Die in the summer before 8th grade: animal sacrifice, sex, violence and paganism. Needless to say, we all loved it, and I still do.
• Philip Larkin was an optimist.
• As if he is somehow a rebel; 'cause he smoked, and conversed with low women . Cripes, if those low rent book-burners were actually payin' attention, they'd realize that current culture has considerably more invidious anti-heros than some slightly disaffected 50's preppie.
• Man, I wonder if I can track down an address for the school, to send 'em a copy of Catcher on me... (Maybe send 'em some other subversive books too... It's time those kids read Chuckie P.'s Fight Club, innit?)
• At the risk of sounding like a dumbass - i read Catcher in the Rye and found it entertaining, accessible, and completely inoffensive. I just don't get why there's a controversy about it. Find me a book written for adults other than the Lord of the Rings that _doesn't_ have "sexual situations"... the Bible? I don't think so. Where are the people clamouring to ban The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay?
• I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who pointed out that the two most subversive works of literature are The Bible and Robin Hood, and everyones allowed to read them at school.
• I wondered how much time it'd take for rushmc to come and do his usual 'CITR sucks' routine. We can go home now, the thread is complete. It's a reflex.
• i didn't read it until after i read a lot of other Salinger, and while it didn't rock my world, i think that has a lot to do with the fact it wasn't "age appropriate" for me, and i read it because it was a Salinger book, not because it was "that book" or because i had to. Nowadays, with so many things derived and inspired from so many other works, people constantly devalue things as "not as good as" without looking at the when and why. The power of Catcher is that it is from the perspective of an adolescent who doesn't know how to deal with how he feels or what to do and it's part of someone looking for answers without knowing what to ask. he wasn't an adolescent when he wrote it and the idea that his choice in perspective was anything less that completely purposeful is a sad assumption by people who like to say stuff like "feh, i could write better than that" The reason it still causes problems is the reason it caused problems for Salinger: crossing that bridge from angst to asking, just realizing there is such a thing beyond knowledge as wisdom is profound. People shift this revelation into reverence for the object at hand, the book, the writer-- Salinger's writing had a lot to do with a search for reason and purpose and that stage of search and revelation is adolescent: it's the stage between being a child and growing up I think this book may be inappropriate for her kid because she seems to think everything is as shallow as it seems to her passive perusal, so her kid could completely use the book as a platform to kill her as a "big fake" without ever following the journey he takes in the book and just reading the part where he bitches about how fake everyone is. Not unlike the guy who took john away. i think someone should call social services because i'm afraid for what this kid's become from "homeschooling". New England can be ...ok, i'm not even going to look for something less offensive to say
• Read Catcher back in the fifties -- its emphasis on the horny adolescent male psyche came a surprise to many. This had not been shown so openly before -- although I thought Holden a bit naif for his age (I was all of fourteen when I read it, and doubtless an insufferable young smart alec myself). Holden seemed to me perfectly credible as a human being and the book had an immediacy and energy other books about juveniles lacked. That Holden ended up in analysis was also a bit startling to many people, because madness/break-downs were not too openly discussed in much of the US back then, either. Think it fair to say Catcher established a whole new basis for realistic writing about youth. But I can't imagine this book would have the same immediacy now as it did then for young people. A lot of Salinger's pieces first appeared in The New Yorker and excited wide interest back in the days when it seemed Americans read more than they do now. In 1958 I attended a cocktail party -- and a lively dispute soon broke out among some of the guests over just why Franny Glass passed out/fainted, In the course of this, a woman with one martini too many knocked the glasses off the nose of a repected professor. Hard to imagine this happening nowadays, but in those days you were already handicapped if you hadn't read Salinger and Capote by the time you entered college.
• I've read it a few times, and each time I got a different reaction. When I read it at 16, I identified with the book, and saw Holden as a hero. When I read it at 19, I felt sorry for Holden, because I knew that the next few years of his life were going to suck most likely. When I read it at 22, I actually started to loathe Holden, for wasting his potential . I think it's about time that I picked it up again.
• Why don't we all write to this woman & tell her she is a fucking idiot?
• what shawnj said. This is a jaw-dropping and frightening moment ... I find it hard to believe there are people out there who find Catcher in the Rye offensive or in any way inappropriate for a teenager ... sheesh ...
• Nostril, I'm with you on this. Here's the link to her info on Google. Bugger it, this will probably get me kicked off of MoFi, but here's her street address. Illiterate morons with screwed up "moral values" sometimes need to be reminded that they're imbeciles. And folks, if you are gonna write to her, have the decency to be civil, please. *Address removed by Tracy*
• apparently this woman DID homeschool her kid, which makes more sense than if she was a random crank trying to make the system fit her wants-- --and so i don't doubt her kid wouldn't be ready to read it, but if he did in an enviroment of discussion about the themes instead of discovering an old copy leant to him by some hobo while he's in turmoil from being a subject of ridicule because of his mom-- --but then if the teacher sucks-- eh she's started another discussion on the relevancy of literature so for that, it's been worth the effort whether it serves her needs. That people will read it because it might be objectionable is a sad way to discover the book but maybe someone who wouldn't have thought about it otherwise will find it. Still, i bet it just means i'll never get to read those other "lost" Salinger stories.
• No matter how appalling the idiot in question, posting her home address on a publicly readable message board is inappropriate.
• Bad, bad, bad idea, people. You've blown this WAY out of proportion. This is nothing more than a mother who is exercising her RIGHT to influence the curriculum of her son's school. Parents are ENCOURAGED to do this. She is not advocating banning the book!. She is asking that it be removed for the grade 9 reading list. Maybe she wants it moved to a higher grade's list. I personally don't agree with her assessment of Catcher In The Rye, but she's not a "moron", "imbecile", or a "fucking idiot". I hope it gets you banned, crataegus.
• 88: parents Should be encouraged to influence the curriculum and, of course, making her or her kid or the book as a target is stupid (info posting=bad) BUT none of this is really about any of those things or it wouldn't be relevant, it would be rehash. I haven't read all of her info but if this woman did homeschool her kid, she can't say what the rest of the class is capable of or ready for-- --that would be the only real problem here. Otherwise it's just been used as a jumpstart for discussion. If they would responsibly dissect Grand Theft Auto or Anything, it would benefit how kids view it. The big losers here seem to be her kid for the flack and the book for the pedestal/disssing, neither one being thought of for their own merit.
• who else would like to attend a cocktail party with beeswacky? especially one where the Glass family is a topic of heated discussion? A bit of seasonal Capote cheer.
• who else would like to attend a cocktail party with beeswacky? Me.
• In the real world, what's happening is way more kids in this town, and probably in New England in general, are actually reading the book. So we can thank this woman for that. And when the kids read the book, they're saying, "What's the big deal here?" CITR is way lame, in terms of being racy, compared to today's TV or video games or what have you. Mountain-out-of-molehill city.
• Me too. I have a nice cocktail dress that I never get to wear. Plus, hanging out with beeswacky = good.
• Oh boy, a cocktail party! Can we discuss literature and art, or is it too much for our widdle heads?
• Online Salinger here.