Like many readers, I've been thinking about J.D. Salinger quite a bit in the six weeks since he passed away at the age of 91.
Apparently, he was an eccentric and, in many ways, unpleasant man (the New York Times called him "enigmatic" and a "literary recluse," "the Garbo of letters"). But there's no doubt he has left his mark on 2 or 3 generations of readers in the nearly 60 years since publication of The Catcher in the Rye.
Just 6 months prior to Salinger's death, a New York Times piece by Jennifer Schuessler explored the question of whether, after all those years, young readers had finally ceased to identify with the novel's unhappy adolescent hero, Holden Caulfield.
And practically at the very moment of Salinger's final exit -- by sheer coincidence -- I was listening to one of the most-talked about* YA audiobooks of 2009: Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford.
The hero of Crawford's book is a different sort of adolescent boy, but he's an
adolescent boy nonetheless. It got me wondering if maybe the Times
article was right and if perhaps Crawford's hero, Will Carter, is the
new Holden. Well, maybe not really...
Holden is depressed. Carter has Attention Deficit Disorder.
Holden worries about what a crummy world it is. Carter worries about dying a virgin and what the exact definition of "third base" is.
Holden is self-destructive. Carter works as hard as he can to not screw up, and space out, and do the wrong thing; it's just that, often, he can't quite figure out how to pull it off.
In the end, Carter gains a little maturity, a little confidence, and a little self-knowledge -- but not too much. Holden too is sort of redeemed in the end, or at least offers something like a note of optimism. Still, it's not quite the same.
Nothing in Carter Finally Gets It is very metaphorical. Its meaning is pretty easy to grasp, and it's not likely to be the subject of quite so much literary criticism as Salinger's famous work. Maybe that's what makes it Young Adult literature in the end.
This gets me thinking about the difference between a true YA title and an adult title offered to young adults. I'm pretty sure that Catcher in the Rye is an adult book that gets read by young readers (sometimes by choice, sometimes not). Carter Finally Gets It might be something like the opposite -- a Young Adult book best appreciated by adults.
Crawford's book has been described as laugh-outloud funny, and this is particularly true of the audiobook, expertly read by Nick Podehl. (Part of what makes the experience so amusing for adults is hearing a grown-up narrator doing a pitch-perfect adolescent "awesooooome!") But might it be funnier for an adult to read about a kid's ridiculous thoughts and feelings than for a kid to see the foibles of adolescence so accurately depicted? Not to worry: to hold everyone's attention Carter Finally Gets It is full of fart jokes, barfing jokes, and crude utterances about heavy petting.
Obviously Catcher in the Rye was going for something other than laughs. Carter Finally Gets It unashamedly goes for the laughs. So many laughs, in fact, that reading it or listening to it probably won't feel like very hard work to young readers. Still, Crawford throws in some food for thought, including such questions as: How do the girls feel about being taken for granted, objectified, and gossiped about? What are relationships about beyond making out? Does hard work really pay off?
It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but in liberal environments perhaps it's just the ticket. And for young readers, maybe it's more compelling than Holden Caulfield, who maybe after all is better left to the adults.
* For LOTS more views of Carter Finally Gets It, visit the archives of the
YALSA-bk listserv discussion at:
http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/yalsa-
bk
YOU can weigh in on the question of what makes a book YA literature by leaving a COMMENT -- click here or use the link below.
Posted by David Perrotta, MLIS
Playaway Senior Content Strategist
Twitter: david_perrotta
