Pandora / Catcher in the Rye [Digest urth.v002.n020]

mantis-- Well, when I started to read Pandora_by_Holly_Hollander and found myself reading a monologue by an observant but a bit alienated teenager, Catcher instantly sprang to mind. Gene Wolfe puts really obscure references in his works (e.g. the torture machine in Shadow which writes on the clients' bodies is from Kafka's The_Penal_Colony). I can't believe he wouldn't make the Catcher connection. Other than that, I don't believe there are that many parallels; Holden Caulfield doesn't solve a murder, and Holly doesn't go to NYC. But that wonderful voice of innocence which thinks it's cynical--that was the same. Maybe I need to re-read Catcher; but I remember not liking it, and I've other things to read. -John