[stylist] What are you Reading Right Now?

[Jacobson, Shawn D]

Chris

I hate when books are forced on me; it gives me a negative impression right from the get go.

I had not noticed Salinger's stylistic genius when reading Catcher, I may have to read it again to try to pick up on it.  Having said that, my guess is that stylistic genius is like offensive line play in football; the best play goes unnoticed and is meant to.  Overly noticeable literary style tends to come off as self-indulgent.

The latest book I've read that I was impressed with was John Scalzi's "The End of All Things" the latest in his Old Man's War series.  This is military SF, but the emphasis is less on the actual war part than on the way statecraft is done.

Anyway, good reading.

Shawn

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris Kuell via stylist
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 6:48 PM
To: 'Writers' Division Mailing List' <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Chris Kuell <ckuell at comcast.net>
Subject: [stylist] What are you Reading Right Now?

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


    


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