Hey, did you know Jeffrey Eugenides' THE VIRGIN SUICIDES was published 16 years ago? The Daily Beast tracked down the rarely interviewed author, who was just in the news as his second book was optioned by HBO (summer is for reruns!), for a look back.
THE VIRGIN SUICIDES is one of those books I'm not sure I would have liked so much had it not reached me at a particular moment. I ought to re-read it and re-watch the movie now that I'm not in high school, etc., and see if it still resonates.
2 days ago
3 comments:
I've never read this book, but so many of my friends have - and it was important to most of them, too - that I wonder if I should pick it up, even if I'm no longer in quite the right age bracket.
I don't know if you ever really know when you'll be in the right age range. I loved The World According to Garp when I read it as a nineteen year-old; prior to that its main demographic had been 30-something boomers with kids. Your state of mind, the metaphorical "place" you are when you read it, etc - those things are more important than your actual age. Though it is sort of hard to imagine The Catcher In the Rye hitting as close to home now as it did when I was 17.
I don't think it's too late for you, Nikki. It's tempting to pigeonhole books set in high school as being somewhat more geared towards people in high school, but... also, you're in high school and there's a kind of myopia there. Part of the reason I want to re-read it is to see how my tastes have changed since then, or what I may have missed the first time.
W.G., I should re-read CATCHER IN THE RYE to find out why it didn't hit close to home for me when I read it in high school.
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