So do most films, especially sentimental war films. Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, which has a great reputation as an antiwar novel, also strikes him as manipulative and artificial. Romance magazines with "lean-jawed guys named David" and "a lot of phony girls named Linda or Marcia" usually set Holden to "puking," although he does sometimes read them on the train. Nor can he tolerate what he sees as emotional manipulations in literature. The artists have sold out - for money or fame or just for applause. These adult manipulations are, for him, the same as prostitution. writes screenplays for Hollywood, or when various actors compromise their talents to please an audience, Holden can't stand it. On the other hand, when Ernie plays his piano at his nightclub in Greenwich Village, or when D.B. Holden likes her jazz style, saying she "sings it very Dixieland and whorehouse, and it doesn't sound at all mushy." He appreciates the fact that she avoids sentimentality and doesn't cater to the audience by making the song "sound cute as hell." Estelle Fletcher, the black artist who sings "Little Shirley Beans" on the recording that Holden buys for Phoebe, is another adult who gets it right. They are quiet, private, an author's expression of his own truth without concern for reward. D.B.'s short stories fall into the same category. The boy is not trying to please anyone he is merely expressing his passion of the moment. When Holden sees the 6-year-old child marching down the street singing, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye," he is uplifted because of the authenticity of the scene. He sees much of life as a conflict between the authentic and the artificial, which is directly related to his attitude toward children and his resistance to the adult world. Holden's aesthetics are entertaining, but they also tell us a good deal about his worldview.
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