Do you like 60 Years Later ?
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I, like most people, love The Catcher in the Rye. I don't know any teenager who wouldn't be able to recognise a bit of themselves in Holden Caulfield. So when I spotted 60 Years Later and knowing of all the controversy and the subsequent US ban, I figured I had to buy it.
I've always been of the opinion that Caulfield is Salinger, or at least a big part of him, so it comes as no surprise to me after reading this why Salinger sought to have this book banned. 60 Years alternates between the point of view of Salinger and Caulfield, and every time Salinger's thoughts are on the page I outwardly groaned. It was corny, not clever like in the movie Stranger than Fiction. Salinger was made out to be incompetent, slightly obsessed and deeply troubled. I wouldn't like someone to portray me in a book that way, even if it were the truth! Caulfield had turned into a 76 year old man who hadn't developed in the slightest, and I have a feeling if Salinger had have written a sequel he'd have treated Caulfield differently.
At no point in the book did I know why I was reading it. It was going nowhere, and I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the descriptions of the old Caulfield finding somewhere to piss every five minutes. The Catcher in the Rye was short, sharp and witty where 60 Years Later was the opposite - it just dragged on and on. I read two other books in the interim - I never once looked forward to picking this book up.
I will admit that J.D. California AKA Colting did capture the writing style of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye perfectly, but mimicking is not creating art.
Claire said on Jun 15, 2010, 12:09