Sample+Criticism+Page

Lundquist, James. //J. D. Salinger.// 1979. Reproduced by permission in //Contemporary Literary Criticism.// 1 May 2007. [|www.galenet.com]. Lundquist focuses on the viability of Salinger and Holden Caulfield after twenty years. He claims that Salinger's themes of "the true and the false in American culture, his religious solutions to the crises of alienation and isolation, and his overriding sentimentality may have had more impact on the American brainscape than anyone yet has taken into account" (1). Because, Lundquist suggests, teenagers are much the same, //Catcher in the Rye,// still appeals and speaks to teenagers of today. The rest of the essay focuses on Salinger as a person--Lundquist even calls him the "Howard Hughes of American literature" (1). Like the main character in //The Aviator//, Salinger remained reclusive throughout his life. Nonetheless, Salinger "portrayed characters who feel estranged and marooned because of World War II" (1). In Holden, he discusses "estrangement and isolation through a Zen-inspired awakening and lonely benevolence" (1). Later, Salinger experiments with new forms and alternative religious beliefs such as "the principles of Zen art" (1). Accordingly, Lundquist claims that "Salinger should be read as a writer who is seeking solutions, as a writer who is trying to give direction to his thought based on an initial disturbing event...World War II" (2).

I like the focus Lundquist puts on Salinger as an experimental author who writes about isolation and alienation. When we look at Caulfield, it seems that Holden functions as an everyman //and// a symbol of these two struggles. Though Salinger rejected the idea that //Catcher in the Rye// was an autobiographical novel, we see Holden's lonely, dysfunctional nature mirrored in Salinger's own personality. I'm intrigued by Lundquist's ideas about "Zen-inspired awakening..."--I don't know that I totally understand what he means by this. Also, I wonder how Salinger's stream-of-consciousness style represents the time period, the character, or his own struggles?