I have a confession to make: I never read Catcher.
This is for several reasons, all of which are probably not overly good ones. The biggest one is I don't have the book, and didn't have an opportunity to buy it. I also have a crazy amount of school mushed into a nine-week semester.
So: my deepest apologies. I will do better next month! Truly!

Surrounded by jerks

I'm going to have to reach back a bit because I finished Catcher a little while ago and all the details are a little fuzzy.
Generally I liked it. Salinger seems to have a way to make the lives of wealthy people seem mundane; a trick Bret Easton Ellis would use in his books Less Than Zero, and (especially) The Rules of Attraction.
But there must be some truth to it all... These kids who get stuck in rich boarding schools and colleges across the country, grasping for some meaning for their lives. I think it's a theme that resonates today just as strongly, if not stronger.

Something happened around the turn of the century, pretty much after the industrial revolution really took off - people that once were not rich started becoming rich. Previously if your were the child of someone poor you stayed poor, and if you were the child of someone rich you too would become rich and would stay that way unless you blew the fortune away somehow - there's stories about that too.
But then the revolution happened and people started making money in the trades. This created a new middle-class - those that had grown up poor, but now were able to afford a few luxury items. Things like education for your children was now available for those people.

The point I'm getting at is this - the values of the parent and the values of the child are rarely in-sync with one another. The children of those who gained wealth and brought themselves up from a state of poverty cannot appreciate the struggle of their parents and won't understand or value things like education or a nice home.

Enter Holden Caulfield - hopelessly bored and unmotivated to succeed. He, like many of his generation and subsequent others, was born into a life without significant strife or suffering. Without anything to fight against or for, he drifts - clinging to the idea that one day he may light upon something that stirs a passion within him and allows him to commit his life to the pursuit of that goal.
I mentioned before in my other blog that I thought Holden was a little snot. Maybe that was too harsh - but I don't like him. He reminds me of me too much.
I mean, the me before I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. He reminds me of all the high school kids I see on the bus, sneering and bobbing their heads to audible bass drums from their headphones.
Stop me when I start to sound old...

I don't blame those kids, or Holden, for being lost. We're a generation born into a padded world, an invisible bubble, where consumer safety groups, PTA's, and endless "mom blogs" create a sense of paranoia and panic about everything. Just today I heard about people worried about the levels of mercury in those energy efficient bulbs - you know, the ones that we all feel better about buying because they use less wattage and will save the Earth? Apparently they're slowly killing us...
Examine anything long enough and you'll find an insidious danger. Even people trying to do the right thing are lost amid the labyrinth of advisory warnings. No wonder people are constantly looking for ways to change their lives; we're just running from a constant, unseen enemy.

Things weren't that different in 1945 when Catcher was first published (he says, as if he'd been there), it's just accelerated now. How fitting for our keeping-up-with-the-Joneses zeitgeist that the carousel should be the final symbol of the novel, when Holden finally realizes the futility of straining for happiness in a world created for him by his parents that doesn't appeal to his interests.
We're all still on a carousel grasping for the golden ring - only the horses are atomic, it spins exponentially faster, and the golden ring is a perfect Facebook status or a clever "tweet".

What bothered me most about Holden is how he constantly accused everyone of being "phony" when he was no better.
But how interesting that this character has captured the interests of school children when they were forced to read Catcher in high school. He was the rebellious youth, who gets kicked out of school, wanders New York, trying to get drunk and laid, and thinks he's special and unique and different than the rest of the world.
The true mark of maturity is realizing that you are not as special as you always believed or were told, but then trying to make yourself so anyway; creating meaning for yourself so life is not monotonous and dry.
He foreshadows this at the beginning by saying you don't want to hear about "all that David Copperfield kind of crap", he figures it out. You are not your name or your hometown. You're not your parents.

"You're not your fuckin' khakis"

That really kills me...

Alright, thoughts on Catcher thus far...

When I first read this book, it drove me CRAZY that there seemed to be no direction whatsoever to the book. I was like, this book is totally aimless and purposeless...and I think at the end I changed my mind a bit but it was hard to enjoy. So, since I knew that it wasn't a "going somewhere" book, I've been able to enjoy it way more this time. Here are the things I've enjoyed:

• The style of writing cracks me up. Or kills me, as Holden might say. Thanks to a nifty quiz Tyler gave me once, I discovered that one of my favorite literary devices is exaggeration and this is probably the first book I've ever read where I've really noticed a common use of it. I think it's adds a weird sort of humor.
  
  
• Since it's not a 'moving forward' book, I feel like instead it's a book that is taking in and valuing every little present moment, no matter how insignificant it might seem. I REALLY like that, because I suck at not enjoying the present, but when I can just sit in a moment and notice the beauty or art in it, it's pretty special. I think this is the same reason I love Murikami so much, he usually just talks about little seemingly meaningless events. But the fact that he talks about them makes them meaningFUL.

This exaggeration also seems to add a bit of brattiness, which I've been watching out for more since Marc commented on him being "a little snot" haha. Still, I have this strange affection for him, I think because he seems like a real live high school student...and I don't think we can flatter ourselves all that much by thinking we're much better, it could just depend on whether we are optimists or pessimists.
I know people just like him and while their negativity drives me crazy sometimes, you occasionally see the side of them that genuinely values things that are good, actions that are good, people that are good. And, like the rest of us he seems to just want to be known...good and bad.

The one thing that frustrates me about him is that he keeps thinking about Jane, who he clearly adores, but when he thinks about seeing her or calling her he doesn't and blames it on 'not being in the mood'. Gosh..stop being so yellow! (haha)

I happen to remember thinking the ending was kinda weird and I didn't process it enough..so I'm looking forward to doing that now!

it's been one of those days

so. i finally finished the road.

i've gotta say it put me through a crazy amount of emotions... i feel like this book really resonated with the part of me that feels things. i was so sad and depressed at the world that was painted for me through mccarthy's words, not because it is something that i fear, but something that more and more i am thinking is a possiblity with the way we are treating ourselves (plus the other influences that i put upon myself during the time of this sporatic read (book of eli... design futurings... anything that shares the vision of a dystopian future...)). but i guess that is not what depressed me, it was more just the fact that a child had to be going through a world with no hope. but that was the initial feelings... i got over that, and whenever 'luck' came across them and they were able to get food, shelter and supplies, i was super happy for them and really hoped they would continue on the path that they were on, or that they would stay there for as long as they could (like the bunker in the middle of the yard... how fun..). and oh my goodness... as i know myself, i can't handle interactions between a father and son without getting emotional, so throughout the whole book i had the nagging fear that one or both would die at any moment, so when it actually came time for the inevitable, i had a lion king simba/mufasa moment of tears before i could come to the conclusion that a book riddled with hopelessness however sad, brings a great amount of joy when it provides an ending with anything slightly resembling hope. like talking a drink of water after being thirsty for a very long time. all in all when i wasn't reading the book i found myself analyzing everything for it's usage if a situation like this should happen... imagining where i'd go and who i'd want with me.. how i could carry the fire.. oh. oh man. exhaustively exciting and terrifying.

OTHER than that what you all said about the book is flippin hammer on the head of the nail... so good... nice'n simple and quick... i think i want to read more of what he has written. i've never enjoyed something so poetic and cold. hooray for blankets. blankets forever.

((i don't know if i'm gonna be able to handle reading catcher right now... mebe i'll have some free reading time after march, when i'm not busting my stuff up for show'n sale and trying to maintain passing grades- but once march is done and the next book is decided i'll be right back at it with you lovelies.))

March on

It's decided! (because it's halfway through March..ha!)

Catcher in the Rye is IT!

New Book

So... if I'm not mistaken, we're all finished, or on the road (haha) to being finished, reading The Road.
Time to pick a new book?

Suggestions?

I did manage to find a bookstore in town that was selling new copies of 'Catcher' for $10.
Amazing, I love that store.

I finished The Road a few days ago, but have been gathering my thoughts. That book is wild. It was a very fast read, very absorbing.

I've read quite a few post-apocalyptic type stories, but this was quite a bit different from most of what I've read. In the other stories, people are searching for loved ones or trying to figure out why all the men died, or trying to stop people from turning into zombies when they die. They have some semblance of hopefulness in them. Possibly the most striking thing about The Road is the almost complete lack of hope. The father is leading the boy south to the coast, but he is aware that there is probably nothing there for them. It will still be cold, they will still be hungry, there will still be next to no food, but they have to keep going. The boy is the only thing left that the father has faith in. The boy embodies his last bit of hope.

When they run into the "bad guys" it becomes more evident what they mean when they say that they are "carrying the fire". Unlike those who resort to murder and cannibalism, the boy and the father are holding on to the last threads of their humanity. It's like the rest of mankind is devolving into beasts but the father and child are keeping their spirits alive.

I have to admit that I was worried throughout the book that the ending would be a let down. Fortunately, my worries turned out to be unfounded. I think there is probably something purposeful in that one of the very few mentions of color in the book is right at the end; the world becomes a little less gray and dismal.

I loved it. It was compelling.