FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for September 02, 2010

Egads, Andi’s as bad as me!

Oh yeah, “Catcher In The Rye” - the name still makes my stomach hurt. I taught myself to skip the bleeps so, if you add that to how fast I read, I tore through it in record time (quick pain is better than slow torture). When I had to give a report on it, I told the prof exactly what I thought of it and he actually gave me an “A” for calling it a “load of psychotic bilge” and saying that “Heart of Darkness” was downright sane in comparison.

Good grief. Schools which assigned “Catcher In The Rye”! I ended up with Knowles’ “A Separate Peace” and considered it a crashing bore. If anyone had suggested “Catcher”, he or she probably would’ve been dragged out and stoned.

I had to read “Catcher In The Rye”, “Look Homeward Angel” and “Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man”. I was being abused at the time, and wasn’t really into the “free love” bleeep that the ivory-tower uber-intellectuals were spouting in the mid-60s. I noted in my report that none of the boys in the books had a pet, and that studies had shown that pets helped children develop a sense of responsibility and kept them from drifting into trouble. I got a D- for the semester, and was publicly sneered at for my negative, reactionary attitude, which according to the teacher was the only problem the people in the books had. Indiscriminate screwing around isn’t a problem, but guilt brought on by other people’s wrong attitudes is.

An interesting side point that I ran across while researching the whole issue of juvenile sexuality and psychosis. Freud based most of his ideas of childhood sexuality and Oedipal complexes on the case of a young girl, the daughter of a wealthy noble of some kind. She insisted he was abusing her, and sharing her with his wealthy, powerful friends. Nothing “cured” her of this delusion, not even shock treatments. When the father died, a couple of dependent relatives admitted that they all knew he really was abusing her, but since they were dependent on his money they none of them would come forward to defend the child. Freud’s whole premise was based on a fraud.

Just like Margaret Mead, who sat in the shade of her hotel’s porch and based her “Coming Of Age In Samoa” on paid interviews with a couple of teenaged runaway girls who hung around the hotel picking up whatever “odd jobs” they could. Later they said it was a real hoot, telling the stupid foreign woman the most outrageous things they could think of. It was quite a joke around the whole island. As far as I know, even though this came to light several years ago, that’s still required reading in anthropology courses.

One of my English Lit teachers assigned “The Return of the Native” by Thomas Hardy. I still have nightmares.

Can’t be worse than having to read “As I Lay Dying” for school.

Hmm – there was a time when “Catcher in the Rye” was considered the Bible of the young, and primarily because it was considered racy reading material for that era!

And folks, let’s not forget that Andi was an English major in college. Of course she’s going to be a voracious bookworm!

I am writing this slowly because I know you do not read very fast .

I loved Catcher In The Rye. I’m surprised at y’all not liking it. Now if you want to read something booooring, try Moby Dick. I’m convinced it’s only still in print because the teachers still insist that it’s a ‘classic’ whatever the heck that means.

Well thank goodness. I thought I was the only one who considered Moby Dick to be a bit on the turgid side. It has a good plot, and some excellent characterizations, but a good editor should’ve seriously taken a blue pencil to Melville’s text.

“Less Than Zero” was the worst! Worthless drivel trying an old, hackneyed formula in an attempt to be sensationalistic. Intellectual vomit!

My my for me when a kid from school never assigned reading books. Summer’s where kinda boring, though rode bikes, mom never took us to libraries, she’s not ilterate just doesn’t like to read. My sister can read but doesn’t like to she like doing those number puzzle’s or sewing. There getting ready for state fair after Labor Day.

I don’t read that fast Paige how did you find time with especially one brother always bother you.

After reading a couple of “classics” to my (homeschooled) family, and finding them extremely boring, I changed my SOP. Now I read them to myself, and THEN if I think they are reasonably interesting, I’ll assign them or read them aloud to the family.

How about Dickens for classic drudgery? Great characterizations, but ooohhh how it driveled on (as I remember nodding off about every third sentence and had to start over). Anything by Steinbeck was my favorite lit class adventure - somehow rang true and seemed relevant.

I had to read The Color Purple, Slaughterhouse 5, and Catch-22 in high school. I missed out on all the fun of Catcher In The Rye, and The Scarlett letter, and The Crucible. Perhaps that’s why I still enjoy reading.

Loved Catch 22.

What was/is really good is the “Hunger Games” trilogy. Fast reading, nice story. As for drudgery, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was horrible.

Just looked up the “Hunger Games” trilogy and it sounds interesting. I’m thinking you might enjoy Julian May’s “Saga Of Pliocene Exile”.

I don’t get it…I read most of the books mentioned in the comics voluntarily, and really enjoyed them! It takes me three days to read eight books, though I bet if they were short books (less than 500 pages) I could squeeze eight into two. How nice to have a new challenge!

We’re in the third week of the semester at my law school, and I’ve already read several of the textbooks cover to cover. That really tells you everything you need to know about me.

notinks, it tells me you’d never make it as a politician.

My HS never had a summer reading list

I’ve never understood these jokes. I usually read pretty quickly so I don’t know what the big deal is

When it comes to reading, this is my mother. No exaggeration.