Friday, January 29, 2010

Recommended Reading upon the Death of J. D. Salinger

Catcher in the Rye gets most of the chatter, but when I was in high school Franny and Zooey was the book that put me under its spell. In the graduate workshop, we just read Nabokov's essay "Good Readers and Good Writers" and he ends with the idea that a writer should enchant... that novel for me was definitely an enchantment.

And then I went to college and my beloved thesis advisor, Russell Banks recommended Nine Stories...which was one of THE books that taught me to love short stories.

So post-mortem don't try to reread Catcher in the Rye, it won't be the book you remember because you're not that person now, try the other two...

1 comment:

Oliver de la Paz said...

Hear hear! I loved Franny and Zooey.