Tag Archives: Alfred Kazin

struggles on the edge of sanity

American literary criticism, to use Adorno’s term is a great machine, a cultural industry constantly in need of raw material. It is, in fact many machines; press the right button and off the assembly line rolls social consciousness, protest, dissent, … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

tradition of the quest

The atmosphere conjured up by J.D. Salinger inevitably recalls the era of nineteenth-century romanticism; then, too, the promise of utopia disappeared in blood, leaving the younger generation disillusioned and ready to escape into the personal search for truth and beauty. … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“we don’t talk we hold forth”

They evoke a memory here, a recognition there, of the kind of overarticulate, overemotional young people who excitedly theorize about the universe and themselves, who forever question what they are saying and then question the question itself, who sound as … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

a seymour misunderstood: hints of envy and terror

The ambiguity was strongest about Seymour, who is regarded by the surviving Glasses as something of a Holy Man. But there are hints in Franny and Zooey that coexistence with a saint, living or dead, can have its drawbacks and … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

small shares of nobility

The refusal to accept the status quo in the universe marks not only adolescents; it also marks the saints and, at times, the mad. The connection is not accidental but necessary and functional. The young have the clarity and newness … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

the Fat lady

Finding behind the laughter all kinds of hate, cruelty and perverted fantasies. In a way, the Glasses are an intimate club, as David Leitch once said, a peculiarly intimate club in which Salinger’s readers were overtly invited to associate themselves … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

J.D : the winsome as unfair advantage

A part of the charge of immaturity often brought against J.D. Salinger is the fact that he did not deal with mature love. The implication is that he “escapes” from sex. It is an open question whether this escape is … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

view from the cliff

So long and thanks for all the fish.Even if it is hard to catch the imagery of fish frozen in ice as anything positive and constructive, a kind of purgatory state that is not fully human, but potentially on the … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

the ordeal

from The Catcher in The Rye: …In the first place, I’m sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don’t care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

the huck of it: the enviable goddam silences

Like Huck Finn, to whom Holden Caulfield is constantly compared, the hero of The Catcher in the Rye is usually described as a rebel, either against the materialism and ugliness of “our society” or against the realities of the adult … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment