[stylist] What are you Reading Right Now?

[Chris Kuell]

I first read 'Catcher in the Rye' in high school, when they forced us to,
andI remember disliking it.

Fast forward  25 years, to when my own kids were in high school and I'd
developed a much deeper appreciation for the written word. I read every book
they had to read, plus most of the books on their summer lists.

So when I read 'Catcher' a second time, I could see that Salinger was
painting a portrait of an angsty teenager. Holden doesn't come across that
way accidentally--it is quite intentional. I immediately read it again, and
studied Salinger's sentence and paragraph structure, and it's really quite
brilliant. He creates paragraphs where Holden says or thinks something in
the first sentence, then things get muddled and he completely contradicts
himself in the last sentence of the paragraph. 

And after all, isn't that a large part of being a teenager, then and now?
Trying to figure out who you are and what you think, all while being
confused much of the time.

Salinger took ten years to write that book, and in my opinion, it was well
worth it.

Chris