Morning Thoughts: September 30, 2017

Our perspectives on some things in life change as we age. Books and movies do for me. A friend started me thinking on this.

I had posted an ending of a movie I liked and said it was my favorite. He voted, instead, for the ending of the film that brought Dustin Hoffman into fame: The Graduate. It wasn’t a bad choice, but would not have been mine.

The director produced a well-crafted ending for a well-crafted film. It started me along this line of thought, though. That film represents one of what I call “age-perspective” works.

I’ll explain.

When I first saw that film, I had just returned from overseas duty in the United States Navy. Respect for others was not high on my list of worthwhile endeavors. I watched the film at the time, marveled at its “groovy” music, and said to myself, “Yes!”

Years passed. I watched it again not long ago, marveled at the timeless music, and said to myself, “That young woman just ran off with the biggest loser in the state of  California.”

That’s just me. But I wonder if other people have similar reactions to works of fiction as time goes by. Do you reckon?

A book that has that effect on me is Catcher In The Rye. After its publication in 1951, it became the icon for teenagers feeling alienated and disaffected. Of course, I fell in with the angst-ridden. As the years have progressed, I continue to respect the superb writing for its rhythm and style, unmatched, in my opinion, in American literature. Old Holden Caufield, however, has seemed a bit more insane each time I have read the book, which is maybe 20 times or more.

I do think Salinger left a lasting influence on American literature. It remains as a lasting axiom that almost any novel since “Catcher” is filled with angst-ridden characters bent on self-destruction. They aren’t teenagers, though, but adult characters that become tiresome two pages after they appear in a book. That’s why I read so few of them, modern novels, that is.

Ahh. The great ones don’t change. Tortilla Flat , The Brothers Karamazov, and Heart of Darkness still ring with the same epic themes as they did on first readings decades ago. The heart still floats on their clouds of majesty. (How’s that for gibberish)?

Speaking of great themes, though, certain aspects of novels only appeared following careful study, after my formal education. It was only after I undertook a protracted study of Eliot’s The Wasteland, for example, that I began more fully to see the “grail” imagery in The Great Gatsby. Without such study, I wouldn’t have picked up on the marvelous imagery of the actors driving past the local landfill on their way to their various searches.

Oh, well … enough babbling for one day. Think I’ll go start re-reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. Maybe I’ll make more sense out of it this time. Then maybe I’ll watch The Wild One, again. Boy, that Brando character was a lousy creep.

Or was he? I didn’t think so at one time.

Just thinking …