light with the material

There have been some good comments about Salinger, notably from Slate, a reader in the New York Times, David Lodge, Lillian Ross and Adam Gopnick. One of the best came from playwright Polly Stenham in today's Observer, who suggests that you need to be quite a sophisticated and diligent reader to catch its various levels:

It reads as a coming of age thing when you are young; when you get a bit older, it's about sexuality and being lost and later you see that it's about an epic breakdown following a death. But he's so light with that material – he dips it in a tiny bit and you have to really concentrate to see it.