Due to J. D. Salinger’s death this week, I’ve been thinking about what I know about his work.
Here’s what I remember about The Catcher in The Rye from when I read it in junior high school: at fifteen years old, Holden Caulfield:
- Couldn’t spell “crummy”
- Flunked out of school because he didn’t trust anyone
- Railed against the world without ever doing anything to change his position
- Hired hookers so he could them whimper about his fate to them
- Was walking queer bait who is paralyzed by inaction and by an overwhelming desire to protect his little sister, and
- In between mopey trips to the movies, he rode around on trains.
By contrast, here’s what I remember about Dune, a book I also read in junior high school: at fifteen years old, Paul Atreides:
- Mastered Bene Gesserit training despite being a male
- Was forced to leave school when his teacher betrayed him and murdered his father
- Built a personal army by taking control of a tribe of vicious native warriors via lethal single combat
- Took the most beautiful princess in the galaxy as his wife while keeping the hottest native girl as his bottom bitch
- Left homosexual predators for his little sister to kill, and
- In between ruthless trips to crush his enemies, he rode around on fucking giant sandworms.
This is why some of us slink around in the shadows hoping to shoot rock stars, and why some of us have gone partying with rock stars.
The moral of the story is: choose your heroes wisely, kids. Batman also hates phonies. He punches them in the groin.
And for good or ill, unlike some people, at least Frank Miller had the stones to try to write a sequel.
[tags]J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in The Rye, Dune, Batman, dark humor, satire[/tags]
