Interesting piece, if only for the gratification of confirming that many other people loath Holden Caulfield every bit as much as I do.
Biggest surprise: Several people (including John Crowley) naming Gravity’s Rainbow as their least-liked great book. I didn’t get far into it myself, but I’m not sure I gave it a fair shot. The problem is finding a big block of time (something I’m preciously short on) to give it another go, as I have the impression that it’s not amenable to the “one chapter a night” method I used to read Moby Dick…
(Hat tip: Bill Crider.)
Tags: Catcher in the Rye, Gravity's Rainbow, J. D. Salinger, John Crowley, Thomas Pynchon
For Gravity’s Rainbow I recommend you just force yourself to get to p. 60 or so in the first sitting. Then you’ll probably race through. Then if you reread it soon after you’ll get even more out of it. That was my personal experience. Similar to Illuminatus. Ended up rereading both of them multiple times.