HOLDEN CAULFIELD REVISITED. This obituary for J.D. Salinger says about THE CATCHER IN THE RYE: “Taken as portraying a thirst for authenticity by some, the work is seen by many young people these days as merely whiney.” We had a discussion about the book last summer on this blog (see here, here, and here). Annalisa and Nick certainly would agree that Holden Caulfield is whiney and that it spoils the book. Dick Weisfelder observed then that “Nick’s reaction is typical for his generation.” In light of that discussion, Dick called my attention to this obituary article about THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by Ian Whitwham, who would be roughly my contemporary (if he was a sixth former in 1961, he would have been between 16 and 19). Whitwham loved the book in 1961 and says he loves it now (”I’m a crusty, unsentimental old git and I like it more than ever.”) Whitwham taught the book to sixth formers for years and says there were always some students who loved it, but, I gather, a minority because he concludes: “It’s more tragic, more heartbreaking — and rather lost on tedious, insensitive modern youth.” I’m afraid that after fifty years I have joined the “tedious, insensitive modern youth” insofar as I have no desire to reread the book. I said earlier that “Characters like … Holden Caulfield are all about us now.” I don’t want to spend any more time with Holden Caulfield, but I am unfair to Salinger if I don’t acknowledge that he created a powerful character and identified an outlook on life that seems to be all about us now. Pioneering books often suffer because what was novel becomes familiar.
Archive for January, 2010
HOLDEN CAULFIELD RECONSIDERED.
Sunday, January 31st, 2010“SAMUEL BECKETT LOOKS AT THE STARS”—NEW YORK CITY PRODUCTION.
Saturday, January 30th, 2010“SAMUEL BECKETT LOOKS AT THE STARS”—NEW YORK CITY PRODUCTION. My play “Samuel Beckett Looks at the Stars” will be performed in New York City next Saturday and Sunday (February 6 and 7). It will be part of a program of short plays which will begin at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday the 6th and at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday the 7th at
Where Eagles Dare Studios, 347 W. 36th Street
New York, NY 10018 (Between 8th and 9th Avenues).
Tickets and reservations are available at the SmartTix reservations service. Here is a link.
WARNING: The running time of the play is about three minutes. You can find an earlier version of the play through the search feature for the blog. I’ll also post the final version after the performances.
ZOMBIES.
Friday, January 29th, 2010ZOMBIES. Annalisa confirms for me that zombies are popular now. I asked her because of this article from the Economist and because I knew that she had been reading in the book described in the article: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES. She speculates that that the book is popular in part because the zombies strike a discordant note in Jane Austen’s prim society. The article begins with a sentence from the book: “From a corner of the room, Mr Darcy watched Elizabeth and her sisters work their way outward, beheading zombie after zombie as they went.” I was pleased by the article’s comments on the economic advantage of zombie films. Special effects are inexpensive because all you need is a lot of extras spattered with blood. I was reminded of how directors of old cowboy movies in black and white found that the most convincing fake blood was chocolate syrup.
MY FATHER, THE CODGER.
Thursday, January 28th, 2010MY FATHER, THE CODGER. On my father’s 70th birthday, we were able to assemble the whole extended family around the dining room table. As the cake was brought in, my brother Elmer asked: “Dad, does this mean that now you’re a codger?” My father beamed, paused for effect, and replied: “I’ve always been a codger.”
KINGSLEY AMIS, CURMUDGEON.
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010KINGSLEY AMIS, CURMUDGEON. My father had a twinkle in his eye when he referred to himself as a curmudgeon. The Times Literary Supplement column has some quotes from Kingsley Amis that don’t seem to be said with a twinkle. About Dylan Thomas: “a stage Welshman.” A comment on Rimbaud’s claim that “madness was a spur to creativity: “There are a lot of answers to that. Bloody Frenchman is one of them.” To an interviewer: “Where is your tape-recorder? I don’t suppose you’ve read my book. Too bloody lazy.”
WAS MY FATHER A CURMUDGEON?
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010WAS MY FATHER A CURMUDGEON? I have just sent a letter in defense of my father to the Times Literary Supplement. My father often happily referred to himself as “the Old Curmudgeon” when he was taking a contrarian position in a dinner table conversation. Here is an excerpt from my letter:
Your cross talk column for January 22 describes the interviewer Valerie Grove as triumphing over Kingsley Amis. She claimed “curmudgeon” meant “skinflint”, and Amis insisted the word meant “cantankerous, irritable.” Your column describes Ms. Grove as consulting the dictionary and that the dictionary proved her right. Your column concludes by referring to Amis as “cantankerous (not curmudgeonly).” Anatoly Liberman at the Oxford Etymologist says that British usage and American usage differ: ” A British curmudgeon is preeminently a miser.” In America, a curmudgeon is preeminently cantankerous. But both meanings go back to Samuel Johnson’s definition of a curmudgeon as an “avaricious churlish fellow.” Both Amis and my father were proud of being “churlish” or “cantankerous.”
‘THE WOMAN WITHOUT A FACE.”
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010“THE WOMAN WITHOUT A FACE.” I am a devoted reader of mystery stories. Stories about serial killers are increasingly popular, probably because they provide a basis for a pattern that the reader has an opportunity to guess. Here is an article about the search for “the woman without a face.” The article, from April 2008, begins: “German police have stepped up the hunt for a murderer dubbed “the woman without a face”, who is believed to be a rare female multiple killer.The mystery woman is suspected of six murders and 15 years of burglaries in three countries. Her latest victims may be three Georgian second-hand car dealers shot execution-style.” The article, from the Scotsman, goes on to provide more information about the woman and her crimes. Here is another article from Australia that gives information about the “woman without a face.” Here is another article, from the London Times, this time giving the killer the name of The Phantom of Heilbronn.” The police chief in Baden-Wurttemberg was quoted as saying: “The noose is tightening.” Less than a year later, in March 2009, there was a solution. There was a pattern. There are clues in the linked articles. I will be posting about the solution to the case in a week or so.
VIKINGS AND CELTS AND GERMANIC INVADERS LIVING TOGETHER (REVISITED).
Monday, January 25th, 2010VIKINGS AND CELTS AND GERMANIC INVADERS LIVING TOGETHER (REVISITED). You can see that Annalisa’s surprise present of John McWhorter’s book resonates with my interests, as revealed in earlier posts. McWhorter documents how the interaction of languages reflects people living together (and talking together). McWhorter disagrees strongly with earlier theories that the Germanic invaders of England after 449 A.D. “routed the Celts in more or less a genocide.” He points to archaeological evidence (for example, grave sites with burials in both Germanic and Celtic styles) and DNA to support his arguments. But the language evidence can be seen as supporting the ideas developed from archaeology and DNA that the Vikings can be seen as “model immigrants who co-existed peacefully with the natives”, as posted here. The language evidence is also consistent with the revisionist theory that a form of English was spoken in the British Isles before the Roman invasion under Claudius as posted here. (the revisionist theory provides another 500 or so years for Celtic languages to influence English grammar.) And McWhorter’s evidence dovetails with the argument posted here that the Vikings “actually adopted English fairly rapidly.” As Annalisa knows, I am fascinated by these efforts to track the activities of individuals whose lives are otherwise lost to history.
WHEN LANGUAGES COLLIDE SLOWLY—THE CELTICS.
Sunday, January 24th, 2010WHEN LANGUAGES COLLIDE SLOWLY—THE CELTICS. McWhorter contrasts the kind of changes to English that the Vikings brought about and the changes to English that arose from contacts with the Celtics. The difference arises because Welsh and Cornish were spoken in England alongside English for over a thousand years. This kind of long-term contact, referred to as a “linguistic equilibrium”, does not result in one language being simplified (such as by developing a simpler grammar). McWhorter argues that this kind of long-term contact with Celtic languages resulted in the addition of two unusual features to English grammar: what McWhorter calls “meaningless do” (”did you notice” and “I did not notice”) and what he calls the use of the verb-noun progressive to express present activity (”I am writing” instead of “I write”). The only languages in the world with “meaningless do” are Celtic and English. The only Germanic language that uses the verb-noun progressive as the only way to express the present tense is English. Cornish and Welsh use the progressive in the same way. As the theory of linguistic equilibrium predicts, English added these features, resulting in a hybrid language with elements of Celtic grammar.
WHEN LANGUAGES COLLIDE RAPIDLY—THE VIKINGS.
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010WHEN LANGUAGES COLLIDE RAPIDLY—THE VIKINGS. I posted here on John McWhorter’s speculation that the process of adults learning a second language imperfectly led to the pronunciation shifts described by Grimm’s Law. McWhorter thinks that lessons drawn from language collisions all over the world cast light on the history of English (he refers to people who study these collisions as “language contact specialists.”) It makes a big difference whether a collision takes place quickly or over a long period of time. McWhorter shows how the history of the English language was shaped in two different ways by the relatively rapid collision with Old Norse (the Vikings) and the centuries long collision with Celtic languages. McWhorter argues that the Viking invaders changed Old English by causing a reduction in the endings of words—something that adults learning a a second language are prone to do. The result was that English differs from Old English in that most nouns in modern English don’t have a gender (unless the noun refers to something that has a gender) and the verb conjugations are very simple. The thought is that the waves of Viking immigrants that began in 787 settled in England and often married English-speaking women and passed their “incorrect” version of English on to their children and others.
