Salinger and the Strain
For obvious reasons Ive been thinking about J.D. Salinger lately. Mostly I have been contemplating the role or the artist in society. What upsets me most about his passing is the legacy of unfulfilled talent and ability. I cant help but feel that an artist of his caliber owes it to mankind, society, or some unflinching higher power to use such a rare and noble gift. The same feeling haunts me with the passing of Vic Chesnutt, Jay Reatard, and the attempted passing of Artie Lange. Often when I struggle and feel that I should give in, it is this sense of duty that compels me to continue. I exist because I feel I have gifts to share even if they are below the status of greatness.
My first encounter with Salinger came when it was supposed to; I was an over-read and undereducated teenager with a serious chip on my shoulder. I was bewildered by Holden Caulfield more than I was inspired. Growing up in North Columbus as the brainy kid in a crime infested neighborhood, gave me a cataract view of the trials and tribulations of an upper-middle-class kid. If anything my world was too brutal, too real I longed for even a hint of phoniness in the blight. It was difficult to see the horror in conformity where conformity means comfort even in the repetition of a meaningless pattern of existence. Where I grew up conformity meant drugs, jail, violence, and an early splattered death.
Now I have to admit that I misunderstood Holden as a character. When understood as an artist, the fakery and repression of any life lived according to an outmoded standard becomes a real horror. Holdens rejection of society comes at the price of isolation and the regret of detachment. Becoming a catcher in the rye means that Holden will never be able to access the unconscious joy of running and playing in the fields being an artist ultimately means being a spectator, a recorder, of life. Such an understanding of Caulfield as a character is why so many young people have felt a kinship with the book and Salinger. Caulfield, we are lead to believe in the book, succumbs to madness in his attempt to settle the conflict between living in a world which offers the happiness of innocence and the fact that such innocence is opposed to the ideal truth of art and the artist.
Salinger couldnt solve this riddle either. The solution grasped at by Chesnutt, Reatard, and Lange leave a void where their talent should be. This void has to be more horrible and wasteful than the strain.
For obvious reasons Ive been thinking about J.D. Salinger lately. Mostly I have been contemplating the role or the artist in society. What upsets me most about his passing is the legacy of unfulfilled talent and ability. I cant help but feel that an artist of his caliber owes it to mankind, society, or some unflinching higher power to use such a rare and noble gift. The same feeling haunts me with the passing of Vic Chesnutt, Jay Reatard, and the attempted passing of Artie Lange. Often when I struggle and feel that I should give in, it is this sense of duty that compels me to continue. I exist because I feel I have gifts to share even if they are below the status of greatness.
My first encounter with Salinger came when it was supposed to; I was an over-read and undereducated teenager with a serious chip on my shoulder. I was bewildered by Holden Caulfield more than I was inspired. Growing up in North Columbus as the brainy kid in a crime infested neighborhood, gave me a cataract view of the trials and tribulations of an upper-middle-class kid. If anything my world was too brutal, too real I longed for even a hint of phoniness in the blight. It was difficult to see the horror in conformity where conformity means comfort even in the repetition of a meaningless pattern of existence. Where I grew up conformity meant drugs, jail, violence, and an early splattered death.
Now I have to admit that I misunderstood Holden as a character. When understood as an artist, the fakery and repression of any life lived according to an outmoded standard becomes a real horror. Holdens rejection of society comes at the price of isolation and the regret of detachment. Becoming a catcher in the rye means that Holden will never be able to access the unconscious joy of running and playing in the fields being an artist ultimately means being a spectator, a recorder, of life. Such an understanding of Caulfield as a character is why so many young people have felt a kinship with the book and Salinger. Caulfield, we are lead to believe in the book, succumbs to madness in his attempt to settle the conflict between living in a world which offers the happiness of innocence and the fact that such innocence is opposed to the ideal truth of art and the artist.
Salinger couldnt solve this riddle either. The solution grasped at by Chesnutt, Reatard, and Lange leave a void where their talent should be. This void has to be more horrible and wasteful than the strain.