“
It has always had special meaning for me because I read it when I was young – 18 or so. It resonated with my fantasies about Manhattan, the Upper East Side and New York City in general.
It was such a relief from the other books I was reading at the time, which all had a quality of homework to them. Reading The Catcher in the Rye was pure pleasure. The burden of entertainment is on the author. Salinger fulfils that obligation from the first sentence on.
Reading and pleasure didn’t go together for me when I was younger. Reading was something you did for school, out of obligation. It was something you did if you wanted to take out a certain kind of woman. It wasn’t something I did for fun. But The Catcher in the Rye was different. It was amusing, it was in my vernacular, and the atmosphere held great emotional resonance for me.
”
- Woody Allen on J.D. Salinger
No comments:
Post a Comment