Re: Salinger and the Beats
Jaramillojp@kktv.com
Wed, 13 May 1998 21:56:38 -0700
If anything I think Salinger would have appreciated an honest writer. A
writer working to find his own voice as Kerouac was and finally did in
On the Road. Salinger was as beat with his father and with fiction
writers in general as any one of the icon beat authors. I guess the
connection I had made was of two honest writers not really wanting to be
the voices and icons they became but two authors who wanted to find
their own voice. The novels are completely different but Kerouac in my
opinion never wanted to be aboutaa movement he just wanted to be his own
writer. This is exactly what I think of Salinger.
As for On the Road and Catcher, which are the two works I am thinking
of, they are both in a very subjective first person style. Both have
characters who are beat and want to drop out of their everyday lives.
Holden thinks of going west and just living as Sal Paradise wants to and
does. Holden is a young and lost character but in a way so is Sal
Paradise. Both writers are very tender as well as very true in their
characters and the subtle social protests. And most importantly Holden
as well as Sal Paradise as well as Salinger and Kerouac or any
existentialist and any person who ever took a pen and tried to write
something are all just looking for some values that are real and valid
in their life that make some sense. That's what connects them for me.