If you're Indian, you'll find it realistic. If you're not Indian you'll find it enlightening. It's entertaining, funny, satirical, sad and true.
I also figured I didn't remember a thing from The Catcher in the Rye, which I read almost 7 years back. So I recently reread it and so thoroughly enjoyed it! I'd been meaning to reread it after an extraordinary play I saw, called Six Degrees of Separation, a couple of years back. The protagonist in the play mentions the book a million times. I empathized with Holden Caulfield. It indeed *is* a world of phoniness and sometimes it makes me very sad. The book itself was written in a slightly different context, in 1951, but the idea is still relevant to the current days. Of course, to complicate things further, in our current cyber age, we not only have a social existence but also a cyber existence, what with social networking websites and all the madness! Really, why do people find the need to constantly live up to a 'Cyber Image'? Oftentimes people meet people online and think they understand each other perfectly - Cyber Ghosts exchanging pieces of their minds at different layers! In all this drama, where is the *real* person? I'm not saying that the Internet is the cause for this or that without it we perfectly understand the *real* people, but the internet is a manifestation of certain human propensities that I'm talking about, and does a good job of nurturing them. It's sad how affected it all looks sometimes- saying something to appear cool or interesting, being the quintesential intellectual whenever a political debate is on, putting a lot of energy into making it clear that your life is perfect, your friends are perfect, your family is perfect and your car is perfect! Some though, are honest and candid people, but do I really want to know every single minute mind numbing event of people's lives in excruciating detail? My guess is No. If you find that harsh, think about this: are people tracking each other to satisfy their curiosities or out of care and concern for each other's well being?
I am not excluding myself from this cyber eco system that I seem to loathe. But I certainly am pondering about it all, although... I am perhaps a part of my object of ridicule.
4 comments:
I read Catcher in The Rye quite a while ago. I remember thinking that it was an extremely cynical world view. Generally, extreme cynics annoy me unless they have other redeeming qualities. :-) In fact I couldn't finish the book if I remember correctly. Maybe I was too young and should re-read to see how I feel about it now.
Well one needs to put it in perspective. Holden is a high school kid for God's sake :) I think his world view being half baked (I wouldn't go as far as calling it 'cynical' since his view isn't even fully formed) is reflective of some childhood hardships and is also part of his adolesence and growing up. If one is that way as an adult, I would think something is wrong.
His reaction to phoniness is understandable, more than his finding *everything* phony. At any rate, I wasn't recommending the book on the blog, just sharing that I read it.
Yea, like I said, I was much younger too. Perhaps I only put it in the context of my own childhood back then and found the kid complaining too much since I was always a happy kid no matter what. ;-) I think I'll re-read it sometime from an adult perspective.
I sometimes think the cyber world is oft being used as a medium through which people project themselves as what they would ideally like to see themselves as, or express a part of them that they are not brave enough to explore in the real world :).
Back in the day, men and women used to compare their lives with neighbors, now it's through social networking.... and I do find it surprising and a little alarming how almost every other "profile" of people of the same generation seem to be sooo similar!! Books, movies, likes, dislikes, places traveled, lifestyle... maybe this generation is so much in harmony :)
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