Okay, folks, I'm re-reading Hawthorne's Portable Tales as we speak. I read on the fly the first time around, so I feel there's a few things I may have missed in the stories. I'm also trying to get through "Rappaccini's Daughter"-- the final tale in the collection. For some reason, I can't get into it as much as the others. In addition to what I have to read for American Lit., I'm also starting on an obscure Gothic novel called The Beetle, which was written by one Richard Marsh, for my criticism and theory class. (Obscure? Gothic? I'm so there!) I actually have to write a research paper and do a symposium presentation on this book. Uhh... more on that later.
And, speaking of American literature, I forgot to mention that J.D. Salinger, author of the controversial classic The Catcher in the Rye (1951), passed away recently. It's really sad that this book was banned in schools and has gotten such a bad rap over the years. IMHO, Catcher transcends all the controversy. Through the main character, Holden Caulfield, Salinger beautifully weaves a tapestry of the most fundamental themes of humanity: loss, alienation, the search for one's own identity, the desire for what is real/intolerance of phoniness, conformity vs. rebellion, feeling like a social outcast, dealing with extreme sociopolitical conditions (in this case, the Cold War; McCarthyism), etc. Thus, I believe the banning of this book (or any literature, for that matter) is totally wrong-- not to mention un-American.
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