schoolyard subversion

Catcher in the Rye Reading Response

Cover

The cover is plain white, with black lettering in all capitals. (Bad for readability, but at least it's a serif type face.) In the upper left hand corner there are thin rainbow stripes separated by a thin strip of white.

Do not summarize the plot or simply retell the story.

Oops. OK, then. How about this? The cover brings out the stark contrast between the purity of childhood (white) with the cold hard stamp of adult authoritarianism (black block letters). The rainbow stripes in the corner symbolize the hope of happiness, but their small area represents the difficulty of achievement. How was that?

Update: After reading the book for a bit, I noticed something annoying about the white cover: it's easy to get messy fingerprints all over it, which are a pain to wipe off. I think this might have something to do with the material the cover is made of, but I'm not sure.

Chapters 1-4 (pages 1-34)

Salinger sure seems awfully fond of speakin' friendly-like. You know? All down-to-earth and stuff. Swearing and cursing and talkin' to you like you're all real buddy-buddy. Man, I hate that stuff. You know, it's awful, like they treat you like your some sort of loser, and they need to sit down and be good friends with you, so you'll keep reading. But it's like he knows you have to read this book, so he thinks he'll make it nice and pretty and all, you know?

And then he keeps going off on tangents and all. Like he knows it'll kill you to actually read the stinkin' classic. Of course, he acts like it's not really a classic at all, it's a fun book to read -- what a laugh! Just a sissy disguise. But anyway, about the tangents. It's like he doesn't want to get on with the story, no, it's probably as boring for him as it is for you. No, he keeps going off on these stinkin' tangents. I just hate things that stink, you know. (Like you really care what I think.) They're just so stinking stinky. That's the other thing -- he's not content to say something just once. No, he has to drive it into your head -- say it three or four times, in case you weren't listening the first time. But he's a sly kind of author, says it in a different way, doesn't just repeat it -- that'd be boring -- he changes the words around the bit. Makes the thing even worse 'cause you can't just skip over it -- have to read the whole stinking thing.

So, the story so far? Stupid kid gets kicked out of an annoying school for being smart. He's bored so he goes around and says hi to everyone. Man, if I wanted to read boring stuff like this I'd go around and read some more weblogs -- at least they're real. This is a story after all -- you know, fiction -- you think he could at least make it interesting. All he does is blather on about what he thinks -- blah, blah, blah -- supposed to flesh out the character or something. Yeah, right.

In the preceding paragraphs, the author uses a technique called imitative sarcasm, in which he sarcastically attempts to be hypocritical. Hey, you either get it or you don't.

Chapters 5-8 (pages 35-58)

This book just keeps getting more boring. It tries to be nice and friendly with you, but it's rather hard to stomach because it's all so...phony. Ironic, considering the main character hates phonies, even though he's just a phony himself -- I mean he is a character, after all. He isn't even real.

Well, I guess you're probably bored of me saying how much I dislike this book, so I guess I should talk about something. How about the hat? It seems like the kind of thing an English teacher would assign, English teachers are like that, you know.

Holden's Hat as a Metaphor for Life

Holden's hat is a symbol for the troubled life that Holden leads. Its smooth, unbroken surface represents the innocence of childhood, but the fact that he keeps turning it back and forth represents the indecision and inner turmoil about Holden's direction in life. The hat is a valuable object, but Holden treats it carelessly, just as he treats his life. He does not care what happens to it in the future, but is instead concerned about the present. Holden lives in the moment.

Hmm, that wasn't so bad. (Or was it?) Alright, and now back to the show...

Chapters 9-12 (pages 59-87)

More of the same. I guess I better flesh out my opinions some more. It's not that he's a bad writer -- the writing's good enough, even if that buddy-buddy stuff gets on my nerves. Instead, it's the plot. Awfully boring, like watching one of those reality TV shows or something. It's interesting to follow someone's life for a little bit, but it gets old fast. Especially if they don't do anything interesting, which is certainly true about Holden.

I think the big problem is that I hate books that waste my time. (As a matter of fact, I hate most things that waste my time.) Plot-wise, this book could be summarized by "Holden gets kicked out of school and goes to New York." It'd be one thing if there was something beyond the plot -- a lesson, or a deeper meaning or something -- but if it's there, I sure can't see it.

Chapters 13-16 (pages 88-122)

You would have thought that by now the book would have redeemed itself, by finding some semblance of a plot to keep you interested. But no, instead you are forced to continue on the rather dull journey of Mr. Holden Caulfield. I was thinking about filling this space with a bunch of quotables about how awful this book was (like "I'd rather have my head dragged over a large quantity of pointy spikes than read this book"), but I think my time would be better spent making connections. Oh well, maybe next entry.

Connection 1: Reality Television

A new fad is sweeping the nation: reality TV. With shows like Survivor and Big Brother, you can sit and watch the boring lives of rather boring people, thereby letting everyone know just how boring you are. It's sad enough that the American public watches so much TV, but these Nielsen ratings tell you just how sad we really are. It's awful. It just shows you, that so many people find their lives so empty, that they feel they need to fill the void with other people's artificially interesting lives. Pretty awful. That's a lot like this book -- pretty awful. Boring people can sit and enjoy it, through its spirited description of Holden's somewhat interesting life, thus filling the gap in their own.

Connection 2: Weblogs

Weblogs are one of the show pieces for the cool and wired. They've created an elite circle of people who link to each other and share the details of their lives over the Web. While it may not be the most interesting thing in the world, it is certainly more real than "reality television" and the experience of reaching out with real people from all over the world is quite something. Sometime weblogs are actually useful, bringing you up-to-date on the most interesting things, without making you wade through tons of junk. Holden's story is a lot like a weblog -- the story of his life, written from the first person point of view. However, while weblogs are interesting, they aren't the kind of thing I'd turn into a book. That's probably why I don't like this one.