J D Salinger Twaynes Warren French Book Review

J.D. Salinger, Revisited by
Warren 1000. French

Open Preview

See a Problem?

We'd love your help. Let us know what's wrong with this preview of J.D. Salinger, Revisited by Warren G. French.

Thanks for telling u.s.a. about the problem.

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign upwards.

Customs Reviews

· vi ratings · ane review

Start your review of J.D. Salinger, Revisited (Twayne's United States Authors, #542)

"Perhaps the general despair and moral paralysis caused by the overhanging shadow of nuclear destruction take fabricated incommunicable in our age the development of dynamic, mature novelists who might offer us a more constructive vision than the contemplative contemplation of the lost irresponsibility of childhood" (169) - DUDE.

For utility'due south sake, I would give this book a 5/v. But I have beef with Warren G. French at present and I can't flatter him too much. Plus I recall he'south nonetheless alive.

I thought I was familiar with

"Perhaps the full general despair and moral paralysis acquired by the overhanging shadow of nuclear destruction take made impossible in our age the development of dynamic, mature novelists who might offer us a more than constructive vision than the wistful contemplation of the lost irresponsibility of childhood" (169) - DUDE.

For utility'southward sake, I would requite this book a 5/5. Just I have beef with Warren G. French now and I tin't flatter him too much. Plus I think he's still alive.

I thought I was familiar with the school of New Criticism - just like I thought it had died downwards by the 1970s - but apparently I had no idea how reductive and clinical it is/was. I can't imagine reading like this all time. Evidently, even though I practice sort of believe in "truthful fine art," I'm not this rigid. French assigns to all writers and readers the most arbitrary rules every bit if he has the rights on human being emotion. But, more annihilation, he shows to me the absolute unwillingness of the dying-out formalists to accept postmodernism, particularly when he classifies the post-WWII era equally "disappointing" (169). The ane fourth dimension Salinger really breaches his over-and-over-again style and his rampages on innocence against phoniness, which French criticizes relentlessly, "Seymour" is written off as "self-indulgent kitsch" (160).

Genuinely though, I'one thousand fascinated by this book. I wish I had the time/money/staying-power to prattle on like this. The structuralist criticism, earlier French talks near all his feelings on the matter at hand, is something I hope to emulate one day. It's also motivated me to revisit Salinger's short stories and care for them equally long plenty works to devote more Capstones to! His Catcher lamentations, praise, and questions bore me because French's critique was obviously (or derivatively) foundational in Catcher's being considered a classic. What I really wanted was talk of the Drinking glass family unit, and oh my god does he hate them.

Possibly it'southward a New Critic matter, but every time French correctively identifies the Glass saga equally character sketches and the similar, he RAILS Against Information technology! Beyond this, he could not be less concerned with a character that he doesn't personally like. I've been condemned for reading too much into the life of an writer when trying to analyze something (that makes me sound like Holden); many occasions French advises u.s.a. against this, too. But every time a Glass family member appears (apart from Franny), French immediately lambasts everything the stories could/should/would correspond, dubbing them instead Salinger'southward inner and self-indulgent monologue. I idea New Critics were all near authorship as alone? Is Salinger not doing just that? Accept yous heard of Modernism's unreliable narrator? And if you don't similar it, only say so.

I can't be bothered to observe this quote, but French classifies art as that which doesn't replace experience, but invites us to sympathise new ones. That doesn't do it for me. Art moves you, and I don't trust French to qualify that motility, or set a threshold a novel must reach until that movement tin can happen. I actually trust Salinger more, which is a fiddling gross. I don't mean nor care to dispute French's opinions (I don't like "Eloise" every bit much every bit he does, and I like "Bananfish" much more he), but the way he goes near delivering them. Information technology'due south just like his criticism of Seymour - an self-appointed czar of wisdom.

And this entire babble leaves out French'due south sexism and blatant disregard for Salinger'southward ain character, which was already coming to light in 1976, and has damning impact on his work (at least in my opinion). I wonder if Salinger read this work considering, if he'due south as sensitive as we all made him out to be, it'due south surely ane of the reasons he never published again.

...more than