Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Catcher in the Rye. Post 2.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

In the second section of the book, we see Holden present some really bizarre behavior for a teenager. A lot of his behavior is mildly obsessive and has an undertone of some sociopathic tendencies.

In one scene, after Holden leaves his school dorm after a fight with his room mate, which was totally uncalled for, Holden went to a hotel in New York to crash until Wednesday. There, he obsesses over this girl, he thinks about her constantly. He just can't get her off of his mind. Her name is Jane. It really is. And he keeps talking about he is depressed and just wants to crawl up in a ball and die, but he wants to go out and be with people. By the way, he keeps talking about this girl named Jane, who used to be his neighbor. She was really nice, he remembers her fondly.

Now, this is what I was talking about. Obsessive, unstable, frustratingly short attention span. This kid is either a schizophrenic or really likes Jane.

I forgot to mention the extent of his vocabulary. His descriptors are pretty much limited to Chrissake, stupid, moron, goddam, dopy, crumby, and a few other stellar choice words.

"She was a funny girl, old Jane. I wouldn't exactly describe her as beautiful. She knocked me out, though. She was sort of muckle-mouthed. I mean when she was talking and she got excited about something, her mouth would sort of went in about fifty directions., her lips and all. That killed me. And she never really closed it all the way, her mouth. It was always just a bit open, especially when she got in her golf stance, or when she was reading, and she read very good books. She read a lot of poetry and all. She was the only one, outside my family, that I ever showed Allie's baseball mitt to, or anything, because that was her first summer in Maine-- before that, she went to Cape Cod-- but I told her quite a lot about him. She was interested in that kind of stuff. (Page 77)"

See what I mean, NO ORGANIZATION.

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