With all this dying, one would forget about the living. Fear not! Happy birthdays J. D. Salinger and Grandmaster Flash. The first birthdays of 2009.
Jerome David Salinger (born January 1, 1919) is an American author best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature; he has not published any new work since 1965 and has not granted a formal interview since 1980.
The Catcher in the Rye original cover
Signet Books “sensationalist” cover
The famous “fuck you” excerpt:
“‘That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write ‘Fuck you‘ right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say ‘Holden Caulfield’ on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died and then right under that it’ll say ‘Fuck you.’ I’m positive, in fact.'” – Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye page 183
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3kRuJhIVIo]
Joseph Saddler (born January 1, 1958 in Bridgetown, Barbados), better known as Grandmaster Flash, is a hip hop musician and DJ; one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are best-known for their single “The Message“.
“The Message” is an old school hip hop song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released in 1982. The song’s lyrics were some of the first in the genre of rap to talk about the struggles and the frustrations of living in the ghetto. Another fuck you, I guess.
I’ve never understood the position of Catcher in the Rye in American Lit. I wasn’t exactly bowled over by it when I read it in high school. Kids my daughter’s age who have also read it in school never seem to be very impressed by it either. None of us feels that it has much to do with the reality of adolescent life in the USA. So why is it so revered? And why is Salinger such a cult figure simply because he is a recluse? It seems it has more to do with its historical context. My recollection of reading it 30 years ago was that it seemed dated even then to my untutored mind.
Maybe I should give it another try…
I’ve never understood the position of Catcher in the Rye in American Lit.
Neither have I, but if you look at it like this: the first young adult fiction novel? Is that perhaps true?
I always took it as a book for adults about young adults – is that what you meant? Maybe it was the first, even then…
I loved that book when I first read it. Though remembering when my niece had to study it at high school and she was not at all enamoured – I was shocked…..