GNR Women's Discussion - Part 2

[Padme]

22 minutes ago, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

There are other themes as well.  It's literally been about 20 years since I last read the novel but I took away from it themes of isolation, feeling 'different' from everyone else and feeling disillusioned with a sort of 'contrived' lifestyle (and contrived people aka the phoneys) that 'society', for want of a better phrase, puts upon the individual.  Reading any book is very personal, no two people will have the exact same reading experience which is as it should be.  I mean, I learned something new just now with what @Padme mentioned.

@Padme  Good point about glorifying boredom! ha! Never thought of it like that before.  

I'm not saying that was Salinger's intention. Maybe it was to some degree. What I meant to say is that I found the book to be very boring. I didn't find anything exciting. I didn't see the book title relationship with the story. In the book there is a mention about a Catcher In The Rye. I just don't see what story has to do with that

[dgnr]

1 hour ago, Oldest Goat said:

Is the book universally thought of as being about adolescence?  Well, fuck. That makes me feel like an immature loser lol because I really relate to that book on a profound level. In a certain way, the way it was written is how I think and talk and even feel about many things.

Not really. The book wasn't written for a teenager public either, it was written for adults. The adolescence theme is there, which is amazing if you think that it was written in the 50's when this theme wasn't really a thing like it is nowadays. But you have a lot of other layers in there. The loss of innocence, him not wanting to grow up (but he already did anyway, you just don't want to grow up when you're already grown up, right?), the loss of his brother and how he deals with it, what he thinks about his other brother and the fact that he's selling himself to Hollywood, the way their parents live a keeping up with the Joneses kinda life, his alienation from society, how everybody clap and laugh for stupid reasons, how everybody do things just for the sake of it, not feeling them at all, the perspective of the passing of the time, etc.

I think this goes beyond what you may feel or think during your teenage years. I think it's more when you're an adult and you are disenchanted with the world and society. But, as most of adults, he doesn't rebel, and that's what a teen would do. He wants to go to work at gas station where nobody can find him or talk to him, but he never finds the guts to do it.  He goes in a kind of depression, blames everybody, but just let it be. He doesn't do anything to change his life, just what an adult would do.
 

1 hour ago, Blackstar said:

I liked the book too.

And yes, there is something very off and... un-Axliish about Axl's point of view, even to the point that makes me think that it might not be completely genuine and that he took this extreme position to be provocative. When there was talk about rock and metal leading teenagers to suicide etc. and the controversy with Tipper Gore and the parental advisory labels on records he had expressed himself very clearly against all that. And yes, of course, One In A Million (although he admitted later that he couldn't think of the powerful negative effect it might have to people). And now he thought that this book could have that kind of effect to teenagers so they shouldn't read it?

Or he thought that if he had read it as a teenager (I guess he hadn't) it would have influenced him that much that he would identify in a bad way? Also the time he wrote the song he was into writing, as he said, about "healing"; and he believed in "bad energy" and such, so it might have to do with that too.

Yeah, I think it's strange too. I understand that he didn't like the book and I even can see why. But what did he read in it that make him want the book censored? It's just a book, it's harmless, it's fiction. If you read the book and you want to kill anybody, the insanity is already in you, the book didn't make you do that. There are even some quotes in it that I can identify with things that Axl did, said or implied on interviews. 

Yes, it could very well be that. He feeling the book had this bad energy 

52 minutes ago, Padme said:

I'm not saying that was Salinger's intention. Maybe it was to some degree. What I meant to say is that I found the book to be very boring. I didn't find anything exciting. I didn't see the book title relationship with the story. In the book there is a mention about a Catcher In The Rye. I just don't see what story has to do with that

With Holden wanting to be the catcher who catches the kids before they fall into the cliff, and the falling into the cliff meaning the lost of innocence and the moment you stop being a kid, I think at the end of the day there's always a parallel narrative where he tries to do that with his own sister. I think he ends up realizing that he can't do that, he can't save her from it, she has to fall into the cliff too, that's how things are. He realizes he can't be the catcher in the rye he wanted to be so bad. That's why I think that, at the end, he let's her ride the carousel and even if he knows she can fall off, he won't/can't tell her - if she fall off, she fall off, he can't avoid that. That's the final realization  and the only time where he says he's happy.

[Gabrielaerojas]

Let’s ask him on Twitter about the book 

[Georgina Arriaga]

7 minutes ago, Gabrielaerojas said:

Let’s ask him on Twitter about the book 

Jaja....The Queen of England and the Pope can answer before Axl

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

@dgnr Wish I had likes left.  Thanks for that brilliant summary of the novels themes.  Like I said, it's been a good 20 years since I read it and I've forgotten an awful lot, just remembered general impressions I took away from it and you've really jogged my memory now!  

@Oldest Goat Well, that's good.  That's precisely what books are supposed to do, strike a chord and get you emotional (even if it's via someone discussing it), change your life even.  And if a book fails to move you, it's no big deal.  Novels are no different to songs in that regard.  Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was a life changer for me.  The album Chinese Democracy was a life changer, too.  I can hear the laugher from here!    It's true and is why it means so much to me.  

The novel obviously struck a chord with Axl too, though in what way precisely we can't know.   It looks like some of us are remain baffled by his experience of it. 

@Blackstar Agree with all you've said.  You may well be on to something with the 'bad vibes' thing.  He really was in to that around that time, and NuGuns had some members who were in to that as well (Brain and Buckethead).  I've always felt that in some ways, certain NuGuns line-ups weren't exactly beneficial for Axl's mental health. 

[Padme]

 

30 minutes ago, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was a life changer for me.  

Now we're talking!!!! I very much enjoyed reading Wuthering Heights. But I hope Axl never reads that one. I fear he might spend the rest of his life making an entire album about the post reading traumatic disorder the book brought to him. 

[Alja]

I had to re-read this several times to start getting picture in my mind (it`s... deeper and more vivid than rational understanding). We have this in common, because we had the book as required reading and everyone was hyped about it how good read it is, and how life it express a modern young person and I was going through it and I was more and more disgusted and disappointed and I had to force myself to finish it (teacher used to make kind of test that you had to read whole book to pass). It was muddy-tar-sticky and I hated flat attitude of main character and his apathy drove me nuts... and... you know.. it was required to finish it. Book was lucky it was library one, I would put it away anyway.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Alja

[Gabrielaerojas]

I still think we should ask someone on Twitter 

[Lio]

2 hours ago, Gabrielaerojas said:

I still think we should ask someone on Twitter 

Go on then! You're really great at asking stuff on Twitter

Edited January 7, 2018 by Lio
typo

[purplestargirl]

I had to read the book in high school for English class and it bored the shit out of me.

[janrichmond]

3 minutes ago, purplestargirl said:

I had to read the book in high school for English class and it bored the shit out of me.

 

I've never read it 

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

4 hours ago, Padme said:

 

Now we're talking!!!! I very much enjoyed reading Wuthering Heights. But I hope Axl never reads that one. I fear he might spend the rest of his life making an entire album about the post reading traumatic disorder the book brought to him. 

omg...If Axl ever got his eyes on that.  I shudder to think of the consequences.   Everyone thinks it's a nice romantic tale but Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship is obsessive and toxic and they hurt each other and everyone around them, the consequences filtering down to the younger generations.  Of course, all this macabre unpleasantness is why I like the book! LOL  

[marlingrl03]

7 minutes ago, janrichmond said:

 

I've never read it 

Ditto...

[MillionsOfSpiders]

4 minutes ago, janrichmond said:

 

I've never read it 

I haven't either. Wasn't mentioned at school, I just remember lots of Shakespeare and war poems. They were more interested in correct spelling etc than everybody reading the same book. We just used to pick what we wanted from the library to read. 

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

Here's a sample for those who are wondering if they should try it out.  See if the first pages grabs you or not.  He has a very distinctive voice, but I can see how people might be turned off from the first sentence. 

 

Spoiler

 

[janrichmond]

I haven't read any 'classic' literature it all seems so boring  i only read thriller type books with murders and what have you 

[Lio]

I love thrillers and murders and detectives, but I try to read literature now and then too

I read Catcher centuries ago, at school, and I loved it. I don't remember much of it, not a lifechanger, not about to murder anyone after that. I just remember that I loved it It didn't take too long to read it either, might reread it at some point. We should all read it and then debate it in a book club thread

Must say I found what Axl said about it a bit bizarre too.

[purplestargirl]

4 minutes ago, janrichmond said:

I haven't read any 'classic' literature it all seems so boring  i only read thriller type books with murders and what have you 

I've read a few classics and some of them are pretty good. I enjoyed Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Agatha Christie's "Murder On The Orient Express" although I don't think the latter is considered a classic. I also liked "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".

I also enjoy mystery and thrillers as well, especially if there's a supernatural element to them.

[Blackstar]

I read that Billie Joe Armstrong said he was forced to read it at school and hated it because of that, then he read it again as an adult because it was considered "punk rock".

Seeing it from this POV I'm on the fence: being obliged to read a work of literature and having to take tests/write essays on it may take away the enjoyment of reading as well as undercut any subversive qualities (in the case of this book, for example), as opposed to discovering it yourself; but on the other hand, schools are useless if they don't help in opening minds.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Blackstar
wrong name

[purplestargirl]

Just now, Blackstar said:

I read that Jimmie Joe Armstrong said he was forced to read it at school and hated it because of that, then he read it again as an adult because it was considered "punk rock".

Seeing it from this POV I'm on the fence: being obliged to read a work of literature and having to take tests/write essays on it may take away the enjoyment of reading as well as undercut any subversive qualities (in the case of this book, for example), as opposed to discovering it yourself; but on the other hand, schools are useless if they don't help in opening minds.

Billie Joe Armstrong? I don't consider "Catcher In The Rye" punk rock at all. The main character comes off as a snobby rich kid who has a 'poor me' attitude. How is that rebellious and punk?

[Andy14]

I read it at high school because of Gilmore Girls. 

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

I'm an avid reader too, and I'm no book snob.  Just the opposite.  I'll read anything I can get my hands on, trashy books, chart books, high brow, comics you name it.   Any genre.  The only genres that I'm tired of lately are crime and thriller and anything with 'girl' in it. LOL  Just a bit over that genre now.

But my favourite authors are Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca) Emily Bronte, Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) and Stephen King, also Joe Abercrombie for his 'grim dark' fantasy books. 

I often find that books you were forced to read at school can be quite enjoyable when you return to them years later with different eyes.

Edit: I fantasise about meeting Duff and talking books with him. LOL

 

Edited January 7, 2018 by MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle

[Blackstar]

4 minutes ago, purplestargirl said:

Billie Joe Armstrong? I don't consider "Catcher In The Rye" punk rock at all. The main character comes off as a snobby rich kid who has a 'poor me' attitude. How is that rebellious and punk?

Yeah, Billie Joe, lol. I edited it.

[Gabrielaerojas]

Does reading fan fiction count?

Nah, jk. I’m an avid reader as well. Even the Twilight saga 

i love reading: from Nietzsche, to Sartre, to classic lit, to the not so classics, even Michael Connelly and Anne Rice. Love to read BIOs and history stuff. Yet, I can’t bring myself to read Sixx’s book nor Adler’s. 

[MillionsOfSpiders]

I'm a really sloooowww reader and I always end up getting half way through a book and then I'll just read the end and ruin it for myself.  Do it every time I read a fiction book.